


Paralyzer

by Yahtzee



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: 1960s, Alternate Universe - Police, Attempted Rape, Bath Houses, First Kiss, First Time, Harm to Children, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Serial Killers, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:59:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 43,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahtzee/pseuds/Yahtzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1965, Erik Lehnsherr has infiltrated the NYPD for his own purposes -- but his powers make him a brilliant detective. Yet that's not why FBI agent Charles Xavier has sought him out. It's because the mysterious killer they're both trying to find is murdering people like them: other mutants. </p>
<p>Their search for a madman binds them together. Their inner demons may tear them apart. But the greatest danger comes when the killer they're looking for looks back ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The term "serial killer" wasn't even coined until some years after this takes place, and did not enter common use until the 1970s. Profiling was not widely accepted within the FBI until after J. Edgar Hoover's death, but began to be practiced in the 1950s. I've taken several liberties with the history on all this (like I had to tell you this, since there are MUTANT SUPERHEROES in it), but I tried to at least nod to the way the real practice of profiling began to evolve. 
> 
> All thanks to my loverly betas, Rheanna and aesc!
> 
> *****

After killing Sebastian Shaw, Erik had found himself at a crossroads. He had honed himself into a weapon – but had no one left to kill. Now he was waiting for a war.

New York City seemed a likely place to find one. 

From the city he needed many things. A way to protect himself, and others like himself, when the time arose. Ways to vanish into the crowd that would make him invisible in plain sight. Means of transferring money, weapons, and people out of sight of prying human eyes – not so much for now, but for the unforeseeably dark future. Erik needed New York’s underbelly, that nexus of the illicit, and he intended to learn the many ways he could turn it to his own advantage.

He could learn them best with a badge.

“Christ, look at this one,” Mulroney said as they stepped past the boundaries set up by the beat cops and walked into the rocky terrain of Inwood Park. “Looks like a goddamn butcher shop.”

“He’s been flayed.” At Mulroney’s flat bewilderment, Erik used a simpler word: “Skinned.”

Even his assessment that this was a he, rather than a she, was a guess; the corpse had slid downhill and settled into a posture that hid the genitalia, or whatever remained of them. It lay face down, hands spread wide, as if in supplication. But that was accident, no more. This one would have died long before the body was brought here.

He said as much to Mulroney, who said, “How do you know it wasn’t done here?”

“Takes time to skin a man, and just off Broadway, even up here, the killer couldn’t have known he wouldn’t be spotted. More likely this was done elsewhere, and the body merely dumped in the park.”

Mulroney sucked on his cigarette. “Helluva mess.”

“That it is.” The musculature, exposed raw to the chill air, gleamed wetly, as did the viscous pockets of fat. Although Erik was hardly squeamish, he wasn’t sorry that he couldn’t see this one’s face. The insects would have been at the exposed eyeballs already.  Erik’s knifepoint gaze followed a trail up the hillside – places where the leaves were pushed aside from rain-soft earth. “Up there. He would have thrown the body from up there. Tell them to seal it off.”

“Yeah, we oughta do that. Guess if the killer took his skin, he wasn’t nice enough to leave the wallet lying around. IDing this one is going to be a job of work.” With that, Mulroney began digging through the nearby leaves, searching for clues – thoroughly enough, in his way. But obviously it would be up to Erik to secure the entire crime scene. He neither resented this nor did it gladly; Mulroney was just one of the things he had to put up with to study the power of the state from the inside out.

They were officially partners at the moment, though Erik’s partners tended not to last long. He wasn’t difficult to work with, they’d say – Erik knew this – showed up on time, had good instincts, but there was something uncanny about the man. He never went out for drinks, never got to know anybody’s family. Nothing ever seemed to get to him. Cops wanted a partner they could be friends with, whose weaknesses they understood. This was why Erik had a new partner every six months or so.

As he hiked up the steep hill, in the odd patch of wilderness at the top of Manhattan known as Inwood Park, Erik kept his eyes on the ground rather than the storm-gray afternoon sky. The problem wasn’t the lack of debris but the surplus of it – even here, probably the least-traveled square inches of the entire city, countless people would have passed by today. Cigarette butts and pop tops littered the pathway. Bottlecaps. A used rubber. One razor blade too small to have been employed in the gory work below, probably used to cut drugs and then abandoned.

How would he ever pick out anything useful from all this?

Now, if the killer had been fool enough to drop anything made of metal, that might be different. But this one – this one, Erik thought, was careful.

Finally he reached what had to have been the spot from which the body was dumped, or very near it. The spotty rain would have long since washed away any shoe impressions. Without a murder weapon at hand – without any resonance of metal on the flayed corpse – he would find little of use here. Erik swore under his breath.

As he looked down at the body, lying pitiful and bare among a ring of gum-smacking cops, he thought of other corpses he had seen thrown away like garbage. Piled like cordwood. Remembered digging through their teeth for gold fillings, the only parts of them the Nazis thought had value. His gut tightened, and he jammed his fists into the pockets of his trenchcoat. At least Mulroney wouldn’t see him like this.

“I’m sorry,” said a quiet voice from behind.

Erik turned, startled; very few people could sneak up on him. The man who stood there was shorter than he, dressed in the same sort of dark suit and ordinary trenchcoat, though his tie was a deep cerulean blue – calling attention to his eyes, which were the same shade. Unlike most men, he did without pomade and let his brown hair fall loosely around his face. It was long enough that he might have passed for a poet from the Village, save for that suit. On his face was a look of such compassion that Erik first had the absurd idea that this man knew what he’d been remembering and pitied him for it. But of course, it was the dead body he pitied.

“This area is being closed off,” Erik said. “Police business.”

“I should hope so.” The man reached into his pocket; Erik tensed. Instead of a weapon, however, he pulled out his own badge. “Charles Xavier. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“Why is the Bureau tied up in this? Is Hoover interested in random homicides now?”

Xavier’s face took on an odd sort of weariness at the mention of J. Edgar Hoover; Erik had always heard the man was little beloved even within the Bureau, and this seemed to confirm it. “Would that it were random. But I’m afraid it fits a certain pattern.”

“Pattern?”

“Are you familiar with the term ‘serial murderer’? ‘Stranger killer’? Or perhaps ‘pattern killer’?”

The phrases were only distantly familiar. Something they’d gone over in training, but briefly – nothing they were ever likely to see. “You mean – like Jack the Ripper.”

“He’s the archetypal one. But they are more numerous than is generally realized. And I believe you now have such a killer in New York City. Some past murders here, plus a couple in New Jersey – they have too much in common.”

Thus the Bureau’s involvement. Erik didn’t relish the idea of having more than one partner to work with; maybe the FBI might end up taking over from here.  “The victims have all been skinned? Like this one?”

“The means of death has been different in each case. It isn’t how he’s killing them; it’s who he’s killing. And that affects both of us quite directly, I’m afraid.”

It was as if he’d known that Erik was hoping to ditch the case. He frowned. “What do you mean?”

Charles Xavier looked down the hill at the dead body; strands of his hair were dark and heavy with rain. “The killer is targeting mutants. Like me. And like you.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

The crime scene had been a tumult of disturbed thought and fraught emotion – layers of disgust, fear and callousness congealing all around the dead body. Charles bore it mostly because, by now, he was used to it.

Sometimes, when he encountered a body very shortly after death, some psychic resonance remaining in the mind came clear to him – not unlike pushing a poker into a lump of fireplace ash and finding a few glowing embers still at the core. This one, however, had been dead too long, or unconscious for a long period before his death. Nothing remained.

Amid all that futility, amid the cold rain and the deepening dark, Charles had found bedrock: The stern, cool, disciplined mind of Erik Lehnsherr.

Erik now sat across from him in the nearest bar they’d been able to find, a beerhouse that would have been thick with young immigrant workers a generation ago but was now down at its heels, worn and yellowing, like the few older men who still went there to mutter together in German. The jukebox was stacked with the kind of music they would have listened to decades ago; at the moment, Dinah Washington crooned “I Wanna Be Loved.”  The beer, at least, was quite good.

“You say you can read and control thoughts,” Erik said. They had discussed this briefly at the scene, and of course told the other policemen and agents nothing about it.

Charles sometimes softened this – let the few people in on his secret discover for themselves, over time, just how strong his abilities were. This one, he could tell, would appreciate swift, blunt honesty. So, out with it:

“I’m not demonstrating how I control thoughts, because that’s too serious to perform as a parlor trick. As for reading them – let’s see. You hate everything German, because of what happened to you and your family. You brought me to this beerhouse because it’s run-down and you like seeing it in a state of decay. You also like making stubborn old Germans serve their beer to a Jewish man. Mulroney bores and annoys you, though he’s not so bad, really. The idea of a killer hunting down mutants makes you angrier than anything else has in a long time. And you – ”

How best to say this? Not even between each other could such a thing be said out loud, in public, so briefly after they had met – no matter how often Charles found himself studying the broad span of Erik’s shoulders, or how many times Erik stared too long into Charles’ eyes.

He settled for, “You like my tie.”

Most people reacted to Charles’ talents with either fear and suspicion or fascination. All three flickered within Erik, but that cool, controlled surety at his center never wavered. “Then you are what you say you are.”

“Thank you for believing me so readily.” Not everyone did. Charles and Moira still laughed about the mental gymnastics he’d had to perform before she’d accepted what he could do. “For what it’s worth, I try to respect people’s privacy.”

This reassured Erik not at all. “Then why do you – work for the Bureau, for anyone? With what you can do, you could have anything you wanted. Do whatever you wanted. Get yourself elected president.”

“Do I look old enough to be elected president?” It wasn’t entirely a joke. Charles had noticed some thinning at the crown of his scalp.

“No.” The mental picture that accompanied this wasn’t entirely comforting – the idea of Charles as so young, too young for this business and this ugliness, completed with the image of –

“A newly hatched bird? Honestly, Erik. You’re buying the next round for that one.”

Erik blinked. “Having a conversation with you – it’s like listening to a dusty record. Sometimes the needle skips ahead.”

“I’m sorry. I try to curb that.” But not with Erik. Already Charles found he wanted to be himself with this man.  

But he couldn’t allow himself to become distracted when something so important was at hand.

“I studied several subjects at university.” No need to mention the multiple doctorates: Moira had finally managed to convince him this was showing off. “Psychology was – an afterthought, really. What more did I have to learn about the human mind? Or so I believed. Then I began delving into the concepts – seeing how theories matched or contradicted or illuminated what I already understood through my power – and it fascinated me. Humbled me. For every place I found psychological theory wanting, there was another where I realized how much more I had to learn.”

“So why aren’t you in an office on the Upper East Side? With society matrons on the couch five days a week, talking about their relationships with their mother.”

“We have a lot to offer the world. Mutants, I mean, like you and me. I thought I should start proving that. Besides – there are people out there who should be stopped. Must be stopped.”

It was impossible to say whether the vision of the flayed corpse in the park belonged to Charles’ mind or to Erik’s. Both, probably.

“A pattern killer, you said. One targeting mutants.” Erik’s eyes narrowed, his gaze fierce enough to chill. “Explain.”

“One month ago, in Connecticut, a woman was found lying in a park near her home. Throat slit. Her eyes had been gouged out. Normally damage to the eyes suggests that a killer is severely paranoid – to them, being seen is the same as losing power. They often literally try to take away the moment their victims saw them by taking the eyes.” Charles thought of the killers to whom he had spoken, the ones who fit this pattern. The disturbance in their minds – it was like turbulence in the air, or a choppy ocean. The mere memory made him vaguely sick to his stomach. “But her neighbors told us there was something uncanny about her eyes. They were a pale violet color – which alone would suggest they were taken, perhaps, as a trophy. But everybody said she had the sharpest vision of anyone they’d ever met. She could read a page of a newspaper being held by someone a hundred feet away.  They also said she was a snoop, that she knew everyone’s business. But when we went through her home, both her windows and her walls were lined with sheets of copper she must have bought as factory scraps. I believe she had not only abnormally acute vision, but also X-Ray vision. The copper must have blocked or at least blurred her sight. She was trying so desperately not to see too much.”

The poor woman – Charles knew how that felt, to have other people’s burdens cascading down on you, endlessly, without any hope of rest.

Erik weighed this carefully. “But how would the killer have known this? He would only have known that her eyes were an unusual color.”

“A fair point. But there’s also the report of a murder in Chinatown. A young immigrant man found in a vacant warehouse. His feet had been cut off. That alone might have been enough for him to bleed to death, but the killer made sure of it by slitting his throat as well.” Charles remembered that warehouse – long empty and so damp that the mold-ridden air clutched at the lungs. Pigeons roosted in the rafters, littering the floor with their grayish dung and molted feathers. He’d been able to hear their fluttering overhead as he’d stood over the enormous bloodstain that marked the last moments of a boy of 19.  “His roommates and employer said his feet were unusual. Clawed, birdlike. Apparently his friends and family considered it lucky for some reason.  So he never made much effort to hide his feet; in his community it was considered a curiosity, no more. He might have been wearing sandals when the killer saw and stalked him.”

“He took the feet. Just like he took the eyes.”

“Precisely.  The victim in New Jersey – the poor woman – he sawed off her arms. Blood loss from that was the cause of death. Neighbors reported that she always kept them covered, wore long sleeves even in summertime.  She kept a diary, which we read as part of the investigation.” Poor lonely woman – she’d been so afraid of being hated, or hunted. Charles’ heart ached to remember her cursive scrawl in the blue ink she liked. “Though she never said precisely what was different about her arms, she called herself a ‘freak’ and an ‘outcast.’ She thought she was hideous. Too different for society. So I don’t know how the killer found her. But he did.”

“The cause of death was dismemberment. He tortured her, you mean.”

“I’m not sure that he did. The other deaths were relatively swift; he sliced through both the carotid and the jugular. There were no signs of struggle from the New Jersey body, suggesting she was unconscious when he dismembered her.” He stared down at his empty glass. Come to think of it, beer really wasn’t strong enough for this conversation. “I suspect that’s what you’ll see with tonight’s victim.  Most murderers like this are very particular about their methods; they either remain consistent or progress within predictable patterns. The mutant killer – he seems to want to shed a great deal of blood. Beyond that, method seems irrelevant. It’s the mutations he’s after, for trophies. That’s all he sees of us, how we’re different, rather than how we’re the same.”

Erik wasn’t as shaken by this as most people would be. Perhaps he had already seen too much horror to be surprised by anything human beings could do to one another. Charles found himself deeply grateful for the steadiness of Erik’s mind.

Just sensing the solid outline of his thoughts was like standing on solid ground after years at sea.

Erik said only, “Your job as a psychologist is to – understand the killers?”

“I’m called a profiler. It’s a new concept at the Bureau. The idea is that if you understand the crime, you can understand the criminal. I attempt to profile a likely suspect – what sort of person would commit these crimes. From that, sometimes it’s easier for us to find out who did.”

“It sounds like witch doctor stuff.”

“J. Edgar Hoover agrees with you”

But Erik’s dismissal was instantly tempered. “With you, though – with what you can do – there must be something to it.”

Charles felt again the weight of responsibility. “For the sake of the mutants in New York City, I hope you’re right.” 


	3. Chapter 3

Someone was hunting them.

Erik had been hunted before. He and his family had been hunted and hated for being Jewish; in the camps, he had seen others hunted down for being Roma, or Arab, or –

\--he didn’t like to think about the ones who had come in wearing pink triangles. He had his reasons.

Regardless, he knew that pattern and understood it would recur. He’d always known the state would come for mutants someday, and had always sworn to be ready.

But this? Being hunted not for political ends by a state, but by one sick man as _sport_?

“Don’t let it make you grind your teeth,” said Charles, who sat next to him in the back seat of the taxi he’d insisted on paying for, as Mulroney had already taken the cruiser back to the station without Erik in it. “You’ve a nice smile. Shame to ruin it.”

When had he smiled at Charles? Yet Erik could easily imagine that he had, maybe when Charles made that crack about his necktie, or when they’d both flung their arms out for the cab at the same moment. This was a dangerous train of thought – anytime, but especially around a telepath, so Erik changed the subject. “How do you stand it? Living in the minds of – the worst of us.”

He expected some platitude about doing good, seeking justice. Instead Charles said, “I don’t know.” He said it as if he wasn’t sure he could continue to stand it much longer.

Outside the taxi’s rain-spattered window Erik glimpsed the station. “We’re here.”

It was late enough that the regular day shift had cleared out, not late enough for the wave of burglaries, drunk and disorderlies, and worse crimes to fill the station anew.  Erik pulled the file Charles had asked about and two others that had come to mind, just in case. In a side room, on a metal-topped table under one harsh hanging light, they spread out pictures Erik had hoped never to look at again.

“How did you detect this pattern to begin with?” Erik asked as Charles looked wearily down. “I see it now that you’ve described it, but it would have been difficult to spot any other way.”

“The woman with X-Ray vision – Nora Simonsen – I’d already identified her as a mutant.” Erik tensed, but Charles briefly laid a hand on his shoulder. “Not for the Bureau. I’d never do that. For my own purposes. I have a bit of a – side project, seeking out other mutants, bringing us together. You I found accidentally, though; sometimes it’s lucky like that. Anyway, when Nora was murdered and her murder involved her mutation – it made me wonder. I started looking, hoping the pattern wouldn’t show itself. But it has.”

Erik tried hard not to feel the absence of Charles’ hand once it was taken away. “I know a few others of our kind also. People in the city.”

“Introductions would seem to be in order. Whenever you’re ready for that.” Charles took a seat. “Dear God. The poor boy.”

“Also flayed. A year and a half ago. We found him near Coney Island.” The grief-stricken mother reported that she’d thought an 11-year-old could go get his own cotton candy. What could go wrong? The stand hadn’t been twenty feet away. “I thought of him tonight.”

“Of course you did. But it’s not the same killer.”

Erik frowned. “How can you be so sure?” The mother had named no mutation, but perhaps she wouldn’t. Most humans would be ashamed of a mutant child.

“The clotting of the blood.” Charles ran his finger along the image, a hairsbreadth above the photo itself.  “It’s strongest in the head and shoulders. The fingertips, too.”

“What does that prove?”

“If someone is hanged upside down when they’re being skinned, it keeps them conscious longer.” Erik sucked a sharp breath through his nostrils; Charles leaned his head in one hand, as if it were all he could do to keep from sliding down onto the table. “This was done to torture the boy as well as kill him. But torture isn’t one of our murderer’s goals.”

“Perhaps he stopped.”

“That’s not the kind of thing they stop. They escalate, usually, unless they just had a close call with capture; in that case, they cease killing completely, at least for a time. But torture, rape, mutilation – those come later in a killer’s pattern. Not earlier. This isn’t the same one.” Charles put the photo aside with obvious regret. “Though if you want me to consult on that sometime, I’m willing.”

Erik just nodded. Unsolved murders were part of his job, always, and sometimes he tried to tell himself that the brutalities humans inflicted on one another were no longer his concern. But a few of them stayed with him. Haunted him, as if he needed any more ghosts. Already he could tell – this one would haunt Charles, too.

“And this is – from when?” Frowning, Charles took up the next file.

“July.” The summer had been so hot the entire city had seemed to go mad. One afternoon they’d taken the caps off the hydrants so the children could cool down in the spray; Erik had walked out into the middle of that in his suit and let himself get soaked. The children thought it was funny, but he hadn’t done it as a joke. “Upper East Side. Another cut throat. And he took her ears.”

“Good God.” Charles actually blanched. “Ellie Volstad.”

“You knew her?” Charles knowing one of the murder victims personally shocked Erik – not only because of the coincidence, but also because Eleanor Mobley Volstad had been an elderly New York blueblood. Several statues in the Met bore placards identifying her as the donor.

“I hadn’t seen her in years. Not since my mother’s remarriage, when I was young. The Volstads came to the ceremony. They were hardly more than acquaintances, but I always remembered her ears. Pointed. Delicate. Like a cat’s. Do you know, I never once considered she might be a mutant? Sometimes children accept oddity more readily than adults. People commented on the peculiarity of Mrs. Volstad’s ears – but always compliments, I remember.  They looked rather elegant.”

That, or Mrs. Volstad’s fortune made even cat ears acceptable. Erik frowned. “We’ll have to add her to the list.”

“You didn’t make it public,” Charles said. “Her ears being taken. Otherwise I’d have caught that just from the news.”

“No.” There was no need to explain further; Charles would understand the need to withhold some details to weed out false confessions. “Given her family’s business connections, the wealth involved, we assumed money was the motive, or perhaps revenge. Obviously we need to reopen this.”

“Obviously,” Charles agreed. But his mood had darkened further. “I only met her a handful of times. But at the wedding, she was very kind to a young boy who was having a hard day. Christ. Sometimes there seems to be no end to the cruelty of the world.”

“I know.”

“I realize that.”

And Charles’ voice was so gentle – not with pity, which Erik knew and loathed in all its guises, but with something that curled warm around him. It should have soothed him, and would have, were he a man who liked being soothed.

Erik decided it was only reasonable to say, “It’s late. We should begin this again tomorrow. Where do you live?”

Maybe it wasn’t reasonable to assume a man in his 20s would need someone to see him home, actually. But Charles took it as such.

“Outside the city – Westchester County. And I took the train in today; my sister wanted to practice driving. God only knows whether my car is still in one piece.”  

“I own a car.” Erik never intended for his only means of travel to be public transit, which could be monitored or guarded. “I keep it in a garage very near here. Want a ride?”

“That’s quite a trip for you – but if you’re sure, yes, I would.”

They were both so tired, so wrapped up in their own thoughts, that hardly a word was spoken on the way to New Salem. Erik decided that was for the best.

Charles was … a good man. Rarely did Erik believe that of anyone, much less after only a few hours’ acquaintance. Maybe that was proof that he should trust this instinct, its rarity a proof that it was true.

He would never have to fear any – entanglement – with a good man. So he was free to enjoy Charles’ presence in the car, the soft sound of his breathing over the humming of the car’s motor, without worrying that this could ever turn ugly.

Mostly, though, Erik thought of the murders, except for one brief moment where he wondered how Charles’ mother would ever have known Eleanor Mobley Volstad, however slightly. Maybe Mrs. Xavier had worked for her as a social secretary, that kind of thing.

As he rounded a corner, and Charles said, “We’re here, “ Erik realized that couldn’t have been true.

The mansion and grounds in front of them would have intimidated any Manhattan blueblood. Possibly it would have intimidated all of them put together.

“Oh, come on, it’s just a house. Not Buckingham Palace,” Charles said as they came to a stop at the end of the long driveway.  “And you’re very welcome to come in. Won’t you?”

Erik hesitated.

“You’ve had a long drive. A difficult day. Besides – I’ve enjoyed meeting you. I’d like us to know each other better.”

Those last words made Erik’s chest tighten, both with hope and fear.

But Charles was a good man, and that meant neither fear nor hope had any place here. The windows of the mansion glowed golden and bright, and Erik imagined that sitting by Charles for a while would be like sitting by a fireplace – a place he could warm himself without worrying that anybody would get burned.

He pulled the keys from the ignition, and Charles smiled. 


	4. Chapter 4

“Hullo!” Charles shouted as he came in. “We’ve got company!” Sensing Erik’s confusion, he turned to him. “You didn’t think I lived in a place this size by myself, did you?”

“Of course not.” Through Erik’s mind, Charles saw the images – straight out of “Father Knows Best,” a wife with a permanent and pearls, chubby smiling children, the works. Well, he’d get the real picture fast enough.

God, it felt so good to be home. This mansion, which had seemed so forbidding to him for so long, had become a refuge again these past few years. He thought of it as his fortress, imagined that the thick stone walls could keep out the world’s evil. When he walked through the door, Charles tried to lay aside all the darkness he’d encountered through the day, to see it as nothing but light. Sometimes he succeeded.

And tonight – with Erik beside him – this was one of the good nights.

“We ate dinner without you, again.” Raven came down the stairs, blonde hair bouncing.  When she saw Erik, she dimpled. “Oh. Hey. Do you work with Charles?”

As Raven didn’t like him to communicate telepathically, Charles tried to give her the look that would most clearly say, _This one is mine_. “Raven, this is Erik Lehnsherr, a New York police detective. We’re cooperating on a case. Erik, this is my sister Raven. She’s a mutant, like us.”

“Oh! You didn’t mean _company_ company.” Instantly Raven discarded her favorite human form in favor of the real one. Erik startled as her hair went from blonde and curly to red and sleek, and her skin rippled into scales and turned brilliant blue. That was the usual first reaction; his second reaction, sheer delight, made Charles grin. “Hi, Erik. Welcome to Weirdo Central.”

Erik’s bemusement was almost comic.

“Who says ‘weird’ has to be a bad thing?” Charles explained. “Come on in. Did you eat?”

“Never before a crime scene, if I can help it.” And now Charles could feel it, that curl of hunger in Erik’s belly.

“Tell us there are leftovers,” he said to Raven.

“You know Hank and Sean.” She sighed. “But there’s probably enough for sandwiches.”

Charles gave Erik a questioning look and was rewarded with a smile. “Sandwiches will be fine.”

As he led Erik through the long hallway back to the kitchen, Raven trailed along. “So what’s your mutation? I can’t see anything out of the ordinary.” She was wondering whether she’d be able to tell more if Erik took off his clothes, which was the kind of thought Charles would have disapproved of if he weren’t curious about that view himself.

“I control metal and magnetism.”

“Cool.” Raven never seemed younger than when she was trying to act sophisticated.

Charles pushed his momentary irritation aside. Honestly, it was a relief that her adolescent infatuation with him had ended a couple of years ago. And why wouldn’t she be attracted to Erik? But he longed to be alone with Erik, just the two of them without darkness and death all around –

 _Well, if you wanted solitude, you shouldn’t have brought him home_ , Charles told himself reasonably.

Sure enough, when they walked into the kitchen, Moira was in there pouring herself a root beer, a pencil tucked behind one ear. “There you are.” She smiled at him warmly, but – after a glance at Erik – refrained from giving Charles his usual kiss on the cheek. Moira was clever like that. “And who have we here?”

Raven answered, “His name’s Erik, and he’s a detective, and his mutation is controlling metal.”

“I’m Moira,” she replied, “and my only mutation is the ability to put up with these people. I study with Charles – which reminds me that I’m running an analysis I should get back to. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Erik said, watching her go with wary eyes. Did he distrust her because she was human, or because she was an attractive woman living in Charles’ house? Charles couldn’t be sure without probing further into Erik’s mind than would have been polite.

Mercifully Raven received a phone call from one of her friends, which guaranteed they’d be left alone for at least forty-five minutes. So he and Erik made roast beef sandwiches on rye in relative peace, and soon they sat at the broad oak table with their bottles of beer, comfortable together, as Charles explained his rather unusual family.

“I suppose I first had the idea when Raven came to me, though it took me a long time to put it into practice,” he said. “That we could create a sort of sanctuary for mutants. Turn this place into something besides a … grandiose display of wealth.”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “Yes, now it looks modest.”

“We’ll need the room, eventually,” Charles protested. “Right now only Raven, Hank, Sean, Moira and I live here full-time. But in the past couple of years, we’ve had other visitors – Thunderbird, Sunfire – ”

“Are you talking about cars?”

“Oh. I guess – it could sound a bit silly. We decided a couple of years back to take mutant names. To identify and embrace what we can do. Raven calls herself Mystique, sometimes. Hank is Beast. Sean is Banshee. Thunderbird is a man from Arizona who would definitely prefer to live there, but is open to connecting with other mutants. Sunfire is a resident of Osaka, Japan, and he’s committed to using his gifts for his native country.”

“This way you don’t always have to reveal their real names,” Erik said, approvingly. “And you? Your mutant name?”

“Oh. The kids call me Professor X.” Charles could feel his cheeks warming. Really, it all seemed a bit childish when said out loud to someone as grave and serious as Erik.

Then Erik said, “I’ll call you Charles.”

It took no more than that to make Charles melt. “Please do.”

Erik’s face perhaps would not have caught Charles’ attention – attractive, but so sealed-off, so careful, that it would’ve been easy to look right past him. No doubt that was intentional. His body was far more promising, particularly now in his shirtsleeves, rolled up to reveal muscular forearms; Charles could already imagine what it might feel like to be held by him. What it might be like when those arms framed his body on the bed.

But the attraction went far deeper than that. Erik’s spirit, the consciousness beneath his controlled surface – it was so steady, so solid, in a chaotic world. Charles imagined it as a pool of cool, clear water. Imagined himself diving in, no longer able to hear the cacophony, no longer scorched by the cruelty, just surrounded by the strength of this man.

“Who is Moira, then?” Erik asked. The tinge of jealousy there was promising.

Best to tell the truth. “She was once with the CIA, but left the organization to work with me here. We were together for a while. Engaged, actually.”

“Ah.” Erik’s mood took a turn for the black. No, it wasn’t exactly jealousy Charles sensed – nothing so gratifying – but something odd within Erik, a sort of anger at himself for caring who Charles lived with, or what his past with Moira might have been.

But he did care.  

So Charles quickly continued, “But we broke that off a couple of years ago. Now we’re just good friends. Partners in this work. She has a fine scientific mind, Moira; she might take up her own doctoral studies at Columbia next year.”

Erik did not seem to be interested in Moira’s fine mind. “She doesn’t get jealous when you have other girlfriends?”

“Well, I date. Though it’s been a while. No, she doesn’t mind. Nor do I mind when she finds herself a new man.”

“A sanctuary for mutants.” Erik thought this over. “Then you recognize that we’ll need one.”

The bleak, apocalyptic scenarios on the surface of Erik’s mind were more chilling than plausible, though – after this case – Charles could never totally discount the possibilities.  “I recognize that the world is harsh for anyone seen as being ‘different.’ But not here. Everyone can be welcome here.”

It washed over and through Erik, the sense that he could stay here too, could have a place – a place by Charles’ side – and the sheer longing that hit Charles then made his breath catch in his throat.

But Erik said, “It’s late. At this rate I won’t get back to the city until after midnight.”

“You could stay here,” Charles said, very lightly. “As you can see, we have the room.”

He didn’t intend to make a move on Erik tonight. The horrors of the day, though outside the mansion walls now, were still too raw in his mind; besides, Erik was too wary to rush into this without rushing away again after. Charles would put him in a guest bedroom, loan him a robe if he had one big enough, and rest with the happy thought that now Erik was safe in the fortress too.

“No.” Erik rose from the table, taking his plate and glass to the sink. “I’m better off staying up late at night than rising early in the morning.”

Charles knew when to surrender gracefully. “All right, then. But leave the dishes to me.”

He walked Erik to the door. Was it possible they’d only met hours ago? Already Charles felt as though there was a place in his mind where Erik’s presence was meant to fit. The nightmares outside the walls had never seemed farther away – even though Erik knew them better than almost anyone else.

“Until tomorrow,” Erik said briskly, but then he paused at the threshold. “I’d like to come back sometime. To learn more about this sanctuary.”

“The boys would love to meet you, I’m sure.” Charles leaned against the doorjamb. His voice soft, he added, “You’re always welcome here.”

Erik’s eyes met his. Neither of them said anything else, not even goodbye. Then Charles watched Erik walk back to his car in the drizzling rain and drive off into all the blackness that lay beyond. 


	5. Chapter 5

Although Erik was exhausted by the time he reached New York City, he did not immediately return home.

Instead he went to the East Village, to a place he knew well. If the proprietors were aware he was a policeman, they never mentioned it, nor blamed him for any of the raids. He paid his money, was buzzed into the main area and given a key for his locker. Erik stowed his clothing with unsteady hands, then draped himself in the white towel. Now he was anonymous. Now he could wander the maze.

As always, the bathhouse was dimly lit. Erik’s eyes searched through the shadows, imagining Charles in every corner, in every young man who walked past or lounged invitingly. Though Charles would never come here: he was a good man, a normal man who desired women, and who did not visit illegal establishments looking for … this.

Once Erik saw a boy who reminded him strongly of Charles – blue eyes, if not as vividly blue; a full dark mouth, if not as exquisitely drawn as Charles’. His hair was slicked back but Erik could imagine it as the same soft brown.

He turned away before his glance could be interpreted as more. He wasn’t here for a substitute. He was here to remind himself that Charles was something he could never have.

In one of the rooms, through the door left ajar, he saw a tall, burly man – one large enough to dwarf even Erik. His skin was a deep tan, and he wore a neat, close-cropped beard. Nothing about him was anything like Charles. And he lounged on his back, indicating that he wanted to fuck someone nearly as badly as Erik wanted to get fucked.

Three minutes later – the door shut, the towel discarded, his body splayed on a plastic mattress designed to be easily hosed down – Erik bit his lower lip as broad fingers pushed into him with little care or patience. It hurt, and he wanted it to hurt. He didn’t want this man to take his time, had only the vaguest sense that it would be better if he did. This was about fulfilling a shameful need as quickly as possible.

And yet – as one hand gripped his hip, as he felt the probing heat of the stranger’s meaty cock – Erik couldn’t help wishing this were Charles.

The man shoved inside. Heat flared through him, along with pain – his muscles tensing, the pressure filling him up, blotting out anything better in him, anything Charles would recognize. Erik only had to be a body now, only had to groan and ache and hang on.

No, Charles would never do this, never. He wasn’t this low. Erik wasn’t that lucky.

But if it were only Charles inside him, hot and slick with whatever oily stuff was in the nearest jar – Charles grunting in satisfaction as he started thrusting hard and fast, fingers digging into the flesh of Erik’s ass – Charles hitting that spot, the one that made Erik’s eyes roll back in his head and his own cock stiffen against the cool plastic, over and over again. If only. If only.

For a moment, Erik could see it – Charles’ floppy brown hair damp with sweat, his mouth open as he breathed hard in ecstasy, his knees between Erik’s parted thighs –

Erik came, so quick and so hard it was almost more startling than pleasurable. Then he could only hold on until the stranger had finished. By then the illusion of Charles had faded, leaving only a bitter aftertaste. He draped his towel around his waist and got out as quickly as he could, semen leaking down his thighs as he went.

 _Charles would never understand anything like this_ , Erik thought. That was only one of the countless differences between them. He rinsed off, dressed himself, and by the time he got home was exhausted enough to sleep despite his shame.

 

**

 

Charles appeared at the station house only a few minutes after Erik got there himself, while he was still drinking the tarry swill the captain called “coffee” from a paper cone in a plastic holder.

“Good morning,” Charles said, but even as he looked at Erik his smile wavered – from radiance to uncertainty. Erik knew full well that he wasn’t thinking about anything he’d prefer for Charles not to know, but who could say what Charles did and didn’t read? His powers might extend as far as knowing what someone did last night, no matter how far back in the mind those memories had been pushed.

Now, of course, Charles knew what Erik truly was. Abnormal. Deviant. No longer would he be welcome in the warm great house – Erik felt sure of that.

Yet Charles’ gaze didn’t dart awkwardly away; there was no hint of disgust or revulsion in his manner. In only a moment, he’d recovered his ease. “Is that coffee? It’s not a rhetorical question. That is not a smell I associate with coffee, or for that matter anything else humans would willingly ingest.”

Erik managed to answer, “Wait for the cart on the corner. You won’t be sorry.”

Charles – wasn’t offended. He hardly even seemed surprised.

On a rational level, Erik understood why this would be. More men gave in to these urges than polite society ever admitted; who would understand that more readily than a man who could read minds? Probably Charles had picked up on this yesterday and was used to it by now. He must have decided that what Erik had to offer as a detective and a mutant was worth enduring certain … aberrant behavior. Besides, given the kind of scum Charles hunted for the FBI, Erik’s sins must have seemed mundane.  

But deeper, Erik was buffeted by confusion and stupid, torturous hope. How could Charles have welcomed him into his home, knowing what he was? Was it possible he truly didn’t mind? If Erik didn’t know better, he would think the way Charles looked at him meant –

He knew better, though.

There was no point in acknowledging any of this, for either of them. Erik said only, “Let’s get started.”

“Your mutants,” Charles said as they walked outside. “The ones you know. We should go to them first.”

Erik turned up the collar of his coat against the autumn chill. The tall buildings around them almost erased the sky. “I’m surprised. I wouldn’t have thought issuing warnings was the FBI’s first priority.”

“Think about it, Erik. Our killer knew that his victims were mutants. He had to know that before he even took them captive.”

The facts aligned in Erik’s head in a new way, making the pattern clear. “He stalks them.”

“And he’s surely stalking another one now. So we need to warn every mutant you know – but more than that, we need to find out what they’ve seen. Who they’ve noticed. Because one of us has already seen the killer.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

Was it about sex with strangers, for Erik? Charles had to wonder, since they were now at their first stop – a sex club.

But no, apparently not. The girls in their gold thongs and cheap negligees had a kind of shopworn sensuality, but it flowed past Erik, meaningless to him.

For Charles – well, he’d never solicited sex. The handful of occasions he’d had the opportunity, the actual emotions of the prostitutes involved were anything but erotic. It was off-putting in the extreme to be coolly assessed for how much trouble you might make, what price you’d offer for a hand job.  But he couldn’t help enjoying the view. The woman opposite them, fleshy and vibrant, had creamy, full thighs, low-slung breasts and blonde hair that gleamed even through the thick haze of cigarette smoke. The one who brought them their drinks was lean and angular, with dark skin and fashionably flipped hair, and the white baby-doll she wore showed the shadows of pubic hair and nipples through its sheer fabric. It felt as though they were surrounded by sex, as if they were drowning in it.

The most distracting person in the club, however, was Erik. The memories that churned just beneath the surface of his mind – the bathhouse, the way he’d spread himself out for a stranger only an hour after leaving Charles’ side, the fact that Erik had been fantasizing about him all the while – kept washing over Charles like the tide, threatening to drag him into the undertow.

Erik raised one hand, and a lithe young woman in a black corset and red heels came to join them.

“Long time no see,” she said to Erik. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally decided to take me up on the freebie? Or do you want to watch me with your friend here?” Her eyes flicked between the two of them, and she smiled. “Am I supposed to watch you two together?”

“This isn’t recreational.” Erik gestured toward the open edge of the booth, next to Charles; she slipped in, so close to Charles that their thighs were pressed together. The idea of her watching him with Erik, her dark eyes wide with appreciation, licking her lips as Charles took him – maybe he needed to focus right now. So he listened more closely to Erik. “Charles, this is Angel Salvatore. One of us. Angel, this is Charles Xavier. He’s with the FBI. Also one of us.”

Her eyes lit up, and for a moment Charles had a flash of who she really was – her exquisite, iridescent wings, even now yearning to burst from the straining corset laces, and the fire burning within.  He hated to diminish that fire by frightening her – but she had to be warned. But he got it out as quickly and efficiently as possible.

“Stalking? You mean, like, hunting us?” She bit her full lower lip. “Killing us?”

Erik laid one hand on her forearm; the touch was innocent, and yet Charles envied her for it.  “You told me before that you tried to keep the wings a secret from your tricks – ”

“How is that possible?” Charles asked, unable to help himself.

Angel shrugged. “Guys don’t pay money to look at my _back_.”

With the persistence Charles already knew was fundamental to him, Erik continued, “Have any of them found the wings? Seemed – fixated on them?”

“A couple guys have seen them,” she admitted, “usually after they put their hands in the wrong place and got curious. I tell them it’s part of a costume. They think it’s sexy. But they’d act the same way about fishnet stockings, you know?”

But this one – this one wouldn’t have the courage to take a mutant to bed, or possibly any woman. This kind of pattern killings almost always satisfied some kind of erotic need, the shadows of which darkened the dead left behind. Yet the lack of sexual violence so far suggested that this killer’s needs were still so mysterious to him, so overwhelming, that he didn’t even fully understand the link between what he did to mutants and his own desires.

So there would be no respite for him in straightforwardly purchased sex. The murders were the only outlet for his hate.

“I doubt it’s a customer,” he said. “Maybe there’s someone who – comes around. He watches. Most especially he watches you. But he never does anything about it, acts frightened or even belligerent when he’s approached. Or someone who hangs around just outside the club, or your apartment.”

Angel folded her arms in front of herself, a protective gesture more poignant because of her near-nudity. “Nobody watches my place – my roommates and I, we’re careful. We’d know. And the customers who never get around to business … there are guys like that, yeah, but I’ve never noticed one of them coming back more than a couple times, and none of those recently.”

It had been too much to hope for, that they’d get an immediate lead. Charles simply nodded. “If you do notice anyone like that, get word to us, right away. Act on the slightest suspicion.”

“What kind of guy is he?” she asked quietly.

Erik shrugged. “We don’t know who it is. I can’t even give you a description. But you need to be on your guard, every minute, every day.”

Angel’s expression darkened. “Hard to avoid letting guys get you alone. It’s kind of my business.”

“Does it have to be?” Charles said. Already he could sense the answer at the edges of her consciousness, but it was better if she told him this herself.

“My parents threw me out when my wings crowned. I had no money, no high school diploma.” Her smile was prematurely bitter. “Can’t even type.”

Charles sensed she’d fit in well enough; the others were far more sheltered, but his home was meant to be a refuge from prejudice, not from reality.  “I have a place in New Salem where mutants can live. You may have a room of your own if you would like it, until this is over, and maybe beyond, if you wish. And you have my word: Neither I nor anyone else will expect you to earn your keep the way you do here. Just help wash the dishes now and then.”

She blinked, then turned to Erik. “Is he serious?”

“I’ve been there. It’s a mansion,” Erik said. “You should jump at the chance.”

Angel hesitated, but she shook her head no. Charles left her with two $20 bills, the phone number in Westchester and directions that explained just which trains to take. “They’ll be expecting you whenever you choose to join us.”

“You’re going to call them?” She stared down at the money. Angel wasn’t used to gifts, only to exchanges. “Let them know I might be coming?”

Charles said, “I can tell them from here.” When his meaning sunk in, Angel laughed in delight and Erik … flinched.

 

**

 

He’s afraid of me, Charles thought as they drove to the juvenile correctional center.

 

It was natural enough to be frightened – virtually everyone who comprehended what he could do feared it on some level. Charles understood this and thought it wise. But in Erik’s case – there were layers to it, two veins of feeling that brushed against Charles’ mind.

The general one was a distrust of that kind of power … of any kind of power Erik couldn’t defeat or claim.  That explained his various illicit connections around the city, hints of which Charles picked up as they went along. Erik had none of the venality that drove corrupt cops; for him, creating a power base in New York’s underbelly was an ignoble means to a noble end. He wanted to have power to protect his own, as he had been unable to protect his family against the Nazis. It was a wish so simple, so pure in its way, that it made Charles’ heart hurt.

The specific fear – that was a fear of what Charles would think of Erik as he saw everything the man worked so hard to hide.

If only Erik understood how beautiful he was, inside and out. When would Charles be able to tell him?

 _Soon_ , he promised himself. But their shared mission took priority over that – over everything else.

They went to see a young man who had been incarcerated there for a few months but was due for release any day now. Alex Summers had a hard, lean look that reflected the mind within. He had willingly endured the hell of solitary confinement rather than expose others to his destructive power. Charles admired that kind of discipline.

“So what now, officer?” Alex’s eyes darted from Erik to Charles, from the known threat to the unknown quantity. “You think I’m some kind of kingpin, arranging robberies from the inside or something like that?”

“We’re not investigating you,” Erik said. “We’re here for your protection.”  

“Lots of guys offer you protection in here,” Alex said. He leaned his forearms against the plastic shelf, held the phone to one ear as he scowled at Charles through the bulletproof glass. “It comes at a price. You look like the type.”

“What type is that?” Charles said evenly.

Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Like a faggot.”

Erik tensed, but Charles shrugged. “Regardless of my type, I assure you, Mr. Summers – you aren’t it.”

Alex laughed, more out of surprise than anything else. But the small joke had disarmed him enough. He’d answer questions now.

“Before your arrest, did you ever notice anyone following you? Besides the policemen who arrested you, I mean. Was there ever a man who seemed to paying undue attention to you, where you lived, so on?”

“Not really. What’s this about?”

“There’s a killer on the loose,” Erik said. “Targeting our kind. But we don’t know how he finds us. We’re trying to learn before he strikes again.”

“Killing … us.” Alex took a deep breath, let it out. His mind betrayed no acute fear, only a slow dread seeping through the cracks of the cynicism already hardening his young heart.  “Never thought I wouldn’t look forward to getting out of this place. Now I wonder.”

Charles found himself issuing another invitation. “I have a room for you if you want it. No price. Come and go as you wish. You’ll be safer. But it’s up to you.”

The address was left with the warden, to be given to Alex upon his release.

“Will he come to the mansion?” Erik said as he drove them away.

“I’m not sure. He’s considering it, but only for a lack of any other options.” Charles sighed as he leaned his head back. “So much hate out there for us. For anyone who is different.”

“Does that surprise you?” Erik said this as though it clearly shouldn’t.

“It doesn’t have to be surprising to be depressing. But I’m trying to think about that hate.  To see it from the inside out.”

“You mean – to understand how the killer thinks.”

“Exactly.” The gray road in front of them was a sea of taxis and buses, all of them seemingly thick with soot. Charles let it fade into a blur. “He hates us. He wants to eradicate us. And yet there’s a fascination with our mutations. An envy, perhaps. That’s what trophies usually mean – they’re something coveted by the killer, something he wants to have for himself. Or at least something he wants to control.”

“Trophies. The stolen body parts.”

“Yes.” Charles had seen others. Some liked hair, or hands, or heads. The most pathetic sex killers, the ones who couldn’t understand normal intercourse or normal bodies at all, often took vaginas, penises or breasts. “It’s fascination mixed up with hatred. One thing puzzles me – there’s been no report of seminal fluid at the crime scenes.”

Erik frowned. “He kills both women and men. Why do you still think it’s about sex?”

“First of all, there are plenty of people who find both men and women attractive. But more to the point, for serial murderers obsessed with power, like this one is, it’s almost always about sex.”

“But there’s no sign of rape.”

“Often there isn’t. People so sexually disturbed that they find murder arousing sometimes can’t find satisfying release in any normal way. They ejaculate while stabbing or strangling their victim, not during penetration. Yes, many of these killers are rapists as well, but not all. The others are more likely to climax during the murder or by masturbating immediately afterward. Sexual molestation, for them, is about demonstrating total power over their victims rather than achieving orgasm. The fact that the killer has control over the people he kills – that’s what he’s attracted to, not gender. Regardless, I’d expect to find seminal fluid at these crime scenes.”

Erik considered this in silence. The disgust he felt was only natural. Charles already felt the weight of his work settling back over him.

Then Erik said, “In a couple of cases, they were found at dump sites. Not at the crime scenes.”

“True.”

“The male victims wouldn’t have been checked as carefully for signs of a sex crime.”

“No. We should go over the reports again. The photographs. See if there’s any sign whatsoever.” Another night spent poring over dead bodies – there was nothing more forlorn, nor more necessary.

Erik had the uncanny ability to turn his attention intensely to Charles and the problem at hand without ever losing focus on the road. “Why is it so important to know?”

“If I’m going to understand him, I have to understand what he gets out of the murders.”

“He removes mutants from the earth. He gets to see us dead. Isn’t that what he gets out of it?”

“Perhaps. But if that were the case, he could simply shoot his victims and walk away. Or poison their food, if he’s more cowardly. The way he kills them – making sure that they bleed, making sure to take their mutations as trophies – that suggests a ritual element. A more complex psychology. And until I understand that, I won’t understand him. Until I understand him, I can’t get us closer to catching him.”

“I don’t think you can understand him. You’re – not like that. You could never understand someone truly evil.”

Charles felt the wet heavy throb of an incipient headache in his temples. “I wish that were true.”  


	7. Chapter 7

It went back to the shoes.

He’d been peeking into garbage cans, like virtually any other child raised in New York City did eventually. Usually he just saw the typical junk, but once he’d seen a mouse, and he liked that, so he kept checking to see if maybe he’d find another.

That day, though, there had been a pair of beautiful shoes. They were bright red, shiny patent leather, with big buckles in front. On the heels were long points that would make anybody who wore them taller. There were a few scuff marks but probably that was why they’d been thrown out. He thought that being taller would be a good idea, so he brought the shoes home. In his room that evening, he tried standing in them. They were much too big for his feet, but that made it funny. It was even funnier to try walking in them. And he thought nothing was prettier than that shiny, shiny red.

Then Mom had come in to see why he was laughing, why he was making so much noise. When she’d seen him in the shoes –

\--she got so mad, so mad, and it was worse than any of the other times.

“Why do you want to be bad?” Tied to the pantry doorknob, unable to get away from the switch. She’d made him take off his pants again. “Why do you want to be different? Why do you want to hurt me?”

He hadn’t understood what he’d done that was so wrong. The shoes had been thrown away; why couldn’t he have them? It wasn’t stealing to take something from the trash. Maybe Mom had thought they were dirty. Lots of things were dirty and bad, and she had never told him what they all were, just made him find out the hard way.

That time she hadn’t stopped when the switch first broke his skin. She hadn’t stopped ten strokes after that, or twenty. Instead she had just cried more, shouted louder, as the blood trickled down his thighs. Against the white kitchen linoleum it had been the same shiny red as the shoes.

The memory faded as the here and now became more interesting.

There she was. The one with the pelt. Just on her back – but there it would be creamy and golden, just like the hair on her head. Already he could imagine stroking it. He’d have to be very careful with the tanning.

She looked both ways before crossing the street, even though she had the signal. Very cautious, this one. He understood that. He tried to be careful too.

But it had been only a few days since the last time. Not even a week. He tried not to do the bad thing too often, because as good as it was it made him all shaky after and sometimes he couldn’t go to work the next day.  And such a mess. He always made such a mess.

She tossed her hair, and the weak winter sunlight caught it, turned it to honey. It would be like that all down her back. And her hands … she painted them like fingernails, but he knew they were claws. She would want to scratch him so badly, criss-cross his legs with a hundred little cuts. But she wouldn’t get to.

Such a mess. Such a mess. It would make a hot sticky mess.

He still liked shiny red. 


	8. Chapter 8

Chinatown. The restaurant was bigger than most in Manhattan, and more formal than any other place Charles had ever eaten that charged less than $5 for an entrée. Cloth napkins of mauve, faux-jade carvings of dragons on the wall, a kitchy painting of a samurai on bamboo – those were there to please the tourist trade. Charles knew the owners mostly cared about the good feng shui provided by the aquarium in the southeast corner.

“You’ve never tried Chinese?” he asked, as Erik stared at the chopsticks like they were enemy weapons.

“No. I eat simply.”

“This is some of the simplest and most delicious food anywhere. And much of it is kosher, by the way – though you don’t keep kosher, do you? Interesting, regardless, at least to me.” Charles brightened as the hot and sour soup made its way to the table. “Do you know, that’s how Chinese food first became popular with customers besides Chinese immigrants? They made the first take-out food, so Jewish people could have it on the Sabbath and not have to cook. Apparently some places in San Francisco used to offer matzoh foo yung.”

Erik took a sip of the soup. Though Charles could feel enjoyment brightening within him, Erik’s face remained expressionless – and his dour mood would not be so easily shaken. “How can you go from warning people about murder to chattering away about Chinese food?”

“I need distractions, sometimes.”

“I’m sorry,” Erik said; the flash of understanding, of empathy, was so much more immediate than Charles would have dreamed that it startled him. “I ought to have understood that.”

“It’s all right. Besides, there’s no point in getting sidetracked. You’re the only person I can bounce ideas off of.” He paused. “Obviously the kids shouldn’t hear any of this, and Moira … I’d rather not drag her into anything this ugly. You and me, we’re stuck.”

Erik nodded; for someone who claimed to be indifferent to food, he was making good headway on the soup.  “All right, then. Tell me how this works, this … profiling.”

“You’ve started with the hardest question first. It’s not a science, I’m afraid. It’s an art. There are certain predictable patterns, certain likely assumptions about the offender’s motives and behavior, but in the end, the profile comes from the profiler. Only a few of us have tried this so far. A couple of us have had remarkable successes. Some others have muddied the investigations more than they helped.”

“Your profiles must be superior, though. Given your power.”

“I can’t read the minds of people I haven’t encountered.” A waitress came toward them with steaming platters of moo goo gai pan and garlic beef; she was thinking about the fight she’d had with her boyfriend earlier that day, mentally going over all the things she should have said.  Charles gave her a kind smile, which cheered her not one whit.

For a minute they deviated from the subject so that Charles could instruct Erik in the proper use of chopsticks. Erik picked up the basics almost immediately, but after only a few bites went back to his fork.  Was it that he didn’t like to do anything that he couldn’t do perfectly? Or was it as simple as preferring metal to any substitute, always?

This time Charles was the one to bring them back to the subject. “My gift helps me profile in only one way: I’ve been able to interview the pattern killers we’ve captured and learn far more than any other interrogator. Not only where bodies are buried, whether they had accomplices, that sort of thing – not only what they think about, but _how_ they think.”

“Their minds must be profoundly disturbed,” Erik said. “Upsetting to read.”

“Upsetting, yes. Disturbed … also yes, but not always in the ways you might think. Some of them are mad. Legally, clinically, or in other ways that I doubt any non-telepath could quantify. Their thoughts almost aren’t like human thoughts. Those aren’t the ones that trouble me the most, though. The worst ones are the ones who aren’t so different from you or me.”

Usually people scoffed when Charles said some pattern killers weren’t very different from anyone else. Erik did not. Dark memories from his past flooded through him – of killers who had been ordinary Germans before their orders came.  Charles knew better than to offer any further comfort, but the thought of Erik as a child, trapped in that place – the ache was overwhelming.

Erik said, “If the killer is one of these, one not so different, then his motives will be more easily predictable.”

“It’s almost pathetically mundane. They can’t enjoy normal physical or emotional intimacy. They’ve fetishized sex. Sometimes violence is part of the fetish; sometimes it’s merely a means to an end.”

“Though I realize we have more research to do, I’m still not sure that sex is a part of this.”

“It is. It almost always is. And this time – ”

How could he express it? Charles considered carefully, chopsticks frozen just above the plate. Erik watched him, wordless and patient; once again Charles found himself steadied by the presence of Erik’s ordered mind.

Finally he said, “Yes, there’s hatred of our mutations. But were this only about hate, were there not a kind of fetish element to it, I doubt he’d remove the body parts that show mutation, and never with such care.”

“Care?”

“Ellie Volstad’s ears were carved away neatly, not ripped off. Flaying an entire corpse takes a great deal of time, and based on the smoothness of the cuts on our John Doe, I think the killer was trying to get the entire skin in one piece, as intact as possible. Someone acting purely out of hate might mutilate or burn the mutated body parts – stab them, use acid, I don’t know. This kind of methodical collecting suggests a fetish. Fetishes are sexual. The link may be rather indirect, but I assure you, he understands it even though we don’t.”

The tension rising within Erik didn’t show on his face. How cold anyone else would believe him to be, and how wrong that was. “So these pattern killers are all sexual deviants.”

Such self-loathing. Such shame. Oh, my friend, Charles thought. “Many people enjoy sex in ways that society doesn’t approve of,” he said carefully. “That’s not deviancy. That’s not evil. Not on its own. On its own it’s just the same need for love anyone else has.”

Erik clearly didn’t know what to do with such a statement. “Evil? Not a very scientific word.”

“I told you before. Profiling isn’t a science; it’s an art.”

“Is evil a term of art now?”

“No.” Charles stared down at his plate. “But it is very, very real. You understand that, I know.” They needed to remain focused, but he thought it was important to underline this for later: “The only sexual ‘deviancy’ that disturbs me, that anyone should worry about, is the kind that melds sex, violence and power. That’s what leads to rape, or the molestation of children, or the acts of the man we’re hunting now.”

The one who’s hunting us, he thought.

“What would you say about him? The one we hunt. What is your profile like?”

“It’s only just starting to take shape.” Charles took a sip of his tea, considering what he felt confident enough to say at this stage – or whether it was worth saying anything that went through his mind. Erik wasn’t the type to make rash assumptions, and perhaps the fine clockwork of his thoughts would find patterns Charles hadn’t yet. “He’s male – though of course that’s obvious. There are many female pattern killers, but they’re far more likely to be motivated by greed or personal vendettas, and they kill their victims as clandestinely as possible, often trying to make the deaths look like the results of natural causes or accidents.  Women cover their tracks. This one is motivated by sex and doesn’t mind the whole world knowing that murders have been committed. So, male.”

“What else?”

“Not as young as most. We most often look for a perpetrator in his twenties – the earliest age when someone severely disturbed has the independence and privacy to act on darker urges. That’s usually when they begin. This one is more methodical. He’s had time to think this over. But he must be physically strong enough to overpower his victims, to dump the bodies. So thirties or early forties. As for race, there’s no telling. Most serial killers kill within their own ethnic group, but we have one Chinese victim among several whites. I suspect mutation is more important to our killer than any racial characteristic. That may be true for the gender of his victims as well; it’s irrelevant compared to the mutation.” Charles paused. That young Chinese man had lived only eight blocks away from this restaurant.

“This is all good sense,” Erik said, but with the definite subtext of, _Nothing anybody couldn’t guess._ It was a challenge – kindly meant, but a challenge nonetheless.

Charles decided to rise to it if he could.  “He won’t be married. His sexual interest is so severely sublimated into murder and mutilation that I suspect any normal romantic relationship is impossible. As such he may have a police record. Not rape – nothing that overtly aggressive. Besides, we’d see signs of sexual abuse on the victims if that were the case. But he’s definitely a voyeur, and so he might have been charged as a Peeping Tom at some point. We should go through those records.”

Erik straightened slightly and raised one eyebrow.

Thus encouraged, Charles continued, “There could also be arrests for indecent exposure, possibly also the theft of underwear or lingerie. But I’d start with Peeping Toms. Whoever our killer is, he has a decent amount of money. He’s no millionaire, but he either has a job that pays him a good middle class wage, or he came into money at some point – an inheritance, a legal settlement, something of that sort.”

“How can you tell that?”

“He has privacy and space to work with the bodies, at least two of which were dumped far away from the victims’ usual surroundings. You don’t get privacy or space in the average New York fifth-floor walkup. In this city, those things cost dearly.” Charles thought some more. “He probably lives in Manhattan, somewhere north of 125th Street.”

Which narrowed it down to only one million people or so.

“How can you – wait. Of course. The locations of the dumped bodies are all above that point. He wouldn’t be able to take them far.”

“Not through the Holland Tunnel, anyway,” Charles replied, though the joke felt tinny and cheap. He was thinking now of the poor flayed corpse bundled up, bleeding through rags, on its final journey.  “And he either owns or has access to a vehicle. A truck or van, probably.”

By now Erik was jotting notes into his pad. “Car owners being a definite minority here – this is a start.”

“We won’t find him with this.”

“But we have something. Before we had nothing.” Erik smiled at Charles as though he were something miraculous.

Yet Charles could take no more comfort from having impressed Erik. Trying to see through the killer’s eyes always took a toll on him – this one more than most. “One final thing, rather obvious of course: The killer knows about mutants. What matters is that he encountered one at some critical moment in his life – a moment that both badly frightened him and aroused him. Though I’m guessing the wires were already crossed, with this one. He would have been … primed to kill. Set, like a bomb. But this encounter with a mutant would have to have been the trigger.”  

But what sort of encounter? A prostitute? That seemed wrong; even hiring a prostitute would be straightforward sexual expression, something unlikely for this killer. Perhaps a molester …

The memories of molestation victims he’d interviewed seemed to flood back in on him – their experiences so vivid that it was as though he had lived them. Every scar. Every blow. Every night in the dark, every hand over his mouth …

“Charles.”

Erik’s hand on his shoulder jolted him back. The nightmares swirled away, leaving behind only plain, comforting reality: the empty teacup, the chopsticks on his plate, the mauve napkin and Erik, so very close and concerned.

“You looked pale. Are you all right?”

“Went too deep.” Charles inhaled, exhaled, tried to relax. He needed the walls of his fortress around him now – but no. Erik’s presence was better than any fortress.

 _Too deep_ , he told himself, but he couldn’t look away from Erik’s eyes.

Just when Charles though he might have to say something – _do_ something, even here, even now – the waitress came back to their table, looking confused. “Excuse me, sir … apparently you have a phone call?”

“Police,” Erik said, flashing his badge by way of explanation. “We have to leave forwarding numbers.”

He glanced back at Charles even as he rose to go to the phone; Charles nodded and tried to look as if he were okay. His attempt must have failed, because the waitress bustled to get him some more tea. The porcelain cup was comfortingly warm against the palm of his hand.

After only moments, Erik walked back toward the table, face grim. “We’re back on the clock.”

Charles’ fingers tightened around the cup. “A lead?” But no, Erik’s dread was settling over them both now, silvery and thick as fog. He knew the truth even before Erik spoke again:

“Another murder.” 


	9. Chapter 9

Yorkville. Farther up than the Upper East Side, but too far from the subway and the main shopping districts to be trendy. Half the residents were solid working-class folks only a generation or two away from the home country; this street belonged to the Hungarians, Erik thought, given that the restaurants all advertised their goulash. But their victim had belonged to the other half of the population – the students who flocked here for the cheap rents. From Fordham, NYU, Columbia and —

“Parsons,” sniffled the roommate who had found her. “We’re studying fashion design. Katy is … Katy was engaged to be married. But she still wanted to get her degree, you know?”

“I understand,” Charles said. “Where is her fiancé?”

“Boston. He’s a lawyer. He has a case up there – he’s been gone a couple of weeks – ”

“Which firm?” Charles jotted down the name in his pad; they’d have to double-check the fiance’s whereabouts, even if he seemed an unlikely suspect. Mulroney shot Erik a dark look. Maybe this was meant to suggest that Charles was being officious, that the FBI was butting into their investigation. Maybe it was his way of pointing out that Erik had spent a whole lot more time working this case, with Charles, than on the beat the last few days – but no. Mulroney wasn’t subtle.

He proved it by saying, “See, the last one lost skin, and this one too, so I figured, they look like a match, huh?”

“Perhaps,” Erik said.

He stepped past the scene in the living room to the bedroom, where the body lay. This one had been flayed only along her back, the strip along the nape of her neck, broadening to cover her shoulders and then narrowing slowly down to her waist. Either that had been insufficient to bleed her to death or the killer had been impatient, because her throat had also been slit so deeply that the cut had nearly gone all the way through. Her hands were a gory mess; this one had fought like hell.

And this time the killer had left the knife.

Erik squatted as if to more closely examine the scene, but instead he held his hand just over the knife, careful not to touch and contaminate it.  The knife – a carving knife, like one found in many kitchens. And it had been hers; it had been in her hand when the killer found her. The resonance between the handle and her palm remained. That was the only reason it had been used.  That was the limit of what he could tell.

The pattern killer they sought would bring his own tools. Were they looking for someone else?

Also, this girl’s shirt and bra had been removed, which made Erik wonder about a sexual assault. The pattern killer didn’t assault his victims in that way – or was unable to, if Charles’ theories were correct. Then again, the skirt and belt were untouched. Even the pantyhose. The removal of her top might have been only to accomplish his bloody work.

 Charles joined him in the bedroom, knelt beside him on the white flocked carpet. “This was quite the boudoir,” he murmured.

Erik had little eye for such details, but he took them in now: a canopy bed, lacy bedspread and pillowcases, framed posters of various exotic travel destinations, probably places a student like this had dreamed of but never seen. Madrid was a bullfighter’s red cap. Nice was the beach, girls in aqua-blue swimsuits. Hawaii was a beaming hula girl. Flat illustrations in primary colors: That was all the girl would ever see of the world. “I suppose.”

“She had an eye for beauty. Aspirations – material, yes, but more than that. Katy longed for sophistication. Experience.”

“The roommate told you that?”

“I can still feel this much.” When Erik stared, Charles murmured, “Something lingers for a while. We got here very shortly after her death.”

How powerful was this gift of his? Erik didn’t know whether to be impressed or intimidated. “What do you see from the crime? Is this one of ours?”

“Yes,” Charles said. His eyes closed as he brought two fingers to his temple – but then his skin seemed to go gray, and his body started shaking. Erik put one hand to Charles’ shoulder to steady him. There was no point in speaking to him; Charles clearly could not hear.

“Hey.” Mulroney’s face creased into a bulldog frown.  “You okay? Is he okay?”

“He’s recovering from an illness,” Erik said. Why already this overwhelming need to cover for Charles, to protect him? He towed Charles back up to his feet. “Are you all right, Agent Xavier?”

“Yes.” The word was hardly more than a whisper. “Forgive me. I’ve overtaxed myself. Perhaps a moment outside.”

“I’ll take him out.” Even as Erik spoke, he knew it was a mistake; Mulroney’s eyes narrowed, wondering why the hell his stand-offish partner was suddenly all over this FBI agent’s ass. He would never suspect the truth (he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, God willing even Charles hadn’t seen that deeply), but he would resent any sign that Erik’s coldness could be personal.

Which it wasn’t, really. Charles was the one who was different.

Erik steered Charles into the hallway; the elevator was an old one, hardly big enough for them both to stand in. That gave him an excuse to continue bracing Charles against the wall as they went down.

“Are you sure it’s safe? Reaching into the minds of dead people?”

“Pretty sure it’s not, actually.” Charles blinked like someone arising from a long sleep. “They’re so close to the edge. But I’ve never gone over yet.”

“Is that supposed to be an argument in favor of your doing this? If so, it’s not convincing.”

Charles’ blue eyes met his, alight with a heat that might have been fever. “Then let’s go outside, where I can convince you.”

They walked around the corner to First Avenue.  Charles braced himself against the iron grate in front of a shop window as Erik paced a semicircle around him, watchful and tense. “Do you need water? A drink?”

“Just fresh air. Or what passes for it in Manhattan.”

Erik crossed his arms in front of him, though it did little to ward off the chill. “You said she’s one of ours.”

“Yes. Katy had fur along her back. Claws, too, which she could extend or retract, like a cat’s.” Charles’ fingers raked through his long hair, as if he wanted to pull at it, hurt his scalp, as a way of towing himself back to the here and now.  “She was so ashamed of it – so confident on the outside, so glamorous, and yet she had this secret she thought was so horrifying. Do you know, she was dreading her marriage? Not because she didn’t love Richard, because she did, my God how she did. But because they’d finally sleep together. He’d find out. She planned to have her back shaved for the wedding – such a child that she wondered if she could always wear a nightgown and fool him that way. Just a girl. Christ.”

“At least this one fought.” Perhaps that would console Charles. It was the only comfort Erik could imagine.

But Charles shook his head. “She didn’t. She couldn’t. I can’t tell why – everything from the moment of the confrontation on is just this wall of total, blinding terror. But Katy couldn’t fight.”

“Her hands. They were torn apart – defensive wounds – ” Erik’s voice trailed off. “The claws. He took her claws.”

“Ripped them out. She was still alive to feel it.”

Erik swore in German.  “Then he’s a sadist after all.”

“I still don’t think so. But obviously he has no compassion, either. He is – indifferent to pain. Utterly indifferent. The way he cut into her – it was the way you or I might carve a piece of meat.”

Then the full import of Charles’ words hit Erik – not like a blow, but something more diffuse and even more overpowering. “You saw the attack. You’ve seen him.”

“Sort of.” Charles’ brows knitted together in frustration. “Katy didn’t get a very good look before he overpowered her – and I’m still not clear on exactly how he did that. But I can tell you that he’s of average height, slightly stocky build but hardly stout. And extremely pale. Not an albino, though he’s nearly that fair. My estimate of his age was accurate: early thirties. He was wearing some sort of uniform – I can’t really see it, she didn’t pay enough attention.  But definitely not ordinary clothing.”

Erik’s first impulse was to put out an all points bulletin – but based on what? Without any scientific, demonstrable proof to back up Charles’ visions, he would merely be laughed at. This was invaluable information, but they could only use it to narrow down suspects after they were already found.

He dealt with the frustration the only way he knew how: by taking what action he could. “He used her knife, not his. Why?”

Charles turned his head slowly. When their eyes met, it seemed to be the first time Charles had truly seen him or anything real since he’d first delved into the dead girl’s mind. “How did you know that?”

“The metal told me. I sensed that it had been in her hand first.”

“My God.” Some color seemed to be returning to Charles’ cheeks. “You are a wonder.”

No, he couldn’t let that please him, couldn’t take any satisfaction in the admiration glowing from Charles like heat from a fireplace. “Why? He must have had his own knife.”

After a few moments’ intense consideration, Charles shook his head. “I’m not sure. Probably it was no more than convenience. Or he may have liked her knife better, yet had enough sense not to remove it from the scene. All I know is a fragment of what Katy knew, and that’s something she didn’t understand.” The brightness in his blue eyes seemed to intensify – but then Erik realized they were welling with tears. “She wanted to live so badly. As she lay there – all she wished – she wished she’d made love to Richard, told him her secrets, because she finally realized she could have trusted him.”

In his mind’s eye Erik again said the dead girl lying on her bedroom floor, blood matting together the threads of the shag carpet. Her spinal cord was all that held her in one piece. The pork chops for dinner lay on the kitchen counter, half-breaded, left to rot.

He put one hand on Charles’ arm, just above the elbow. Despite the trenchcoat and jacket Charles wore, Erik imagined he could feel a pulse beating against his thumb. “There’s nothing we can do for her now, except catch her killer.”

“I know that. It’s just – ”

“Yes.” Erik brushed his thumb back and forth, small reassuring strokes. He’d never touched another officer this way. Had hardly touched another man this way, with gentleness. Yet it seemed familiar all the same. “Your mind is your own, Charles. Only your own. Katy’s time is done. We would change that if we could, but we can’t. You have to reclaim yourself.”

Charles nodded. They were quiet together for a time. Erik never took his hand away.

Just when he thought he had to pull back or risk exposure, Erik saw Charles straighten. He seemed to be his own man once more as he said, “I have an idea about our killer. No more than a theory – but one we should explore.”

“What is that?”

“Our killer has the uncanny ability to find mutants. He’s found almost as many as you and I ever have, and we’ve spent years looking, reaching out, creating relationships.” Charles took a deep breath. “There may be another network of mutants out there. One separate from either of us.”

Erik had spent so many years searching the back alleys of Manhattan for his own kind that he wanted to say this was impossible – but he knew where such pride could lead. “Agreed. And our killer has found that network.”

“Or he is a part of it.”

“Wait – you mean – ”

“We’ve been operating on the assumption that our killer hates mutants. And perhaps he does.” Charles took a deep breath. “But he might also be one.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

Charles had known Erik wouldn’t like this idea. Yet he had not prepared himself for this blackness, this blankness, the hard metal wall of Erik’s rejection. “The killer hates mutants. He despises us.”

This had to be phrased very carefully. “Which doesn’t mean he is not a mutant himself. Self-loathing is not an unusual reaction for those who are different.”

 

It skittered off the surface of Erik’s mind like a pebble against steel.  “You’re telling me that he hunts his own kind. That’s ludicrous.”

“Is it? I promise you it happens.” Charles could have mentioned some killers of young men, who claimed their victims deserved it because they were “faggots” or “queers,” even when they’d sodomized those victims. But he didn’t. Erik would read that as a condemnation of homosexuality.  “A mutant who hates his own mutation, who despises his difference from the rest of humanity and blames it for whatever problems he has, might take that anger and turn it outward. He might be removing their mutations because he can’t remove his own. It could be – like mine, or yours, inseparable from ourselves – or just because the removal would kill him.”

Erik’s eyes narrowed; only now did his hand drop from Charles’ elbow. “Through Katy – did you see his mutation? Some way he looks different, some power he has?”

“No,” Charles admitted. “He incapacitated Katy very quickly, so quickly that even she didn’t understand how it happened. That could suggest a mutant power – but I don’t recall any evidence of that.” Charles felt he would have recognized telepathic interference in Katy’s mind, even if she hadn’t herself. Honestly, it seemed most likely that he’d simply struck her on the head. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a mutant. “His appearance wasn’t remarkable except for his paleness.”

“If this mutant hates his mutation – ” Erik said the words as if they made no sense, as though it were some nonsense gibberish he was repeating only to humor Charles. “—wouldn’t it have to be something obvious? Something that made him ridiculed, or at risk?”

“Only something that made him feel alone.”

Erik remained unconvinced. His pride in his mutation was evident – it had been one of the first things Charles had known about him – but never before had he realized that Erik defined himself almost wholly as a mutant. This was not one thing Erik valued about himself, or even the primary thing, but the only identity he allowed himself to fully accept and embrace.

And for such a man, the idea that mutation could be the source of evil was anathema. Only Erik’s regard for Charles himself kept his reaction at the level of hostile disbelief instead of outrage.

So Charles continued more gently. “You’re absolutely right that I don’t know this for certain. He may not be a mutant. We only need to remember that he _could_ be. This killer must not escape because we operated on faulty assumptions.”

“You reason with me very carefully.”

“But not dishonestly.”

Erik nodded, acknowledging this, though his expression remained grim. “He knows of us. Of our connections to one another. There, I’m sure you’re right. He might have had the luck to spy one mutant or another through an open window, but to find so many, so quickly – he has information.”

Charles shrugged. “He could be the son of a mutant. The brother. That kind of intimate relationship – if it were abusive, poisoned – it could create the sort of displaced rage that drives him.”

“Would you know his face again if you saw it?”

“Perhaps. The features aren’t clear enough for me to work with a sketch artist, not that I could explain how I had the description.”

“We begin with the networks, then.” Erik’s shoulders lost their belligerent set; his eyes searched for something in Charles’ face, something Charles did not know whether he found. “Anything else you should tell me?”

“Two things.” The first was what any profiler worth his salt would know: “This was a very short period between kills. Usually when they speed up like this, they’re building toward an explosive act. Sometimes this is self-destruction – suicide – but sometimes it is a dramatic escalation of violence.”

Obviously Erik understood how even a killer like this could become more violent. “And the other?”

This was something Charles’ powers had allowed him to see. “I was right about the sexual element. He didn’t molest Katy, but he – gloried in his power over her.  Forgive the vulgarity, but he was getting off on it, and she knew it. God, how she hated him for it. He’s getting more confident now. More curious. If he does escalate, we’ll start seeing signs of sexual assault.”

Erik breathed out sharply, jammed his fists in the pockets of his trenchcoat. “We’re in the position of hoping the killer does himself in, leaving the cases unsolved.”

“If that meant Katy was his last, I’d accept it.”

“So would I.” That seemed to set right the balance between them. Erik said, “All right?”

“Yes. I think so.”

They went back upstairs. Erik’s gaze followed Charles around the apartment, as if attempting to ensure he would no longer attempt to delve into Katy’s dying mind. Charles tried anyway, but she’d faded even as he left. Nothing was left now. Katy was gone.

 

**

 

For the final briefing that night, he swiftly put together the most comprehensive profile he could while not being too explicit about mutants – “targeting people with physical oddities” was close enough to the mark for most law enforcement purposes. They addressed the combined task force at the precinct, and he weighed the minds in front of him as best he could … not interfering, not tinkering, but impressing upon them how important this was, how serious, so that they would all believe in the links. The mutants at risk could not be further endangered by skepticism on the part of the law.

Afterward he and Erik drank another cup of that vile coffee, saying little, though Erik’s contentment in Charles’ company was gratifyingly gentle, like a blanket of lamb’s wool. But just when Charles thought he might ask for another long ride back home, Erik and Mulroney were called out on an armed robbery.

Which was just as well, as it would have been embarrassing to take the train in the next day to collect his car from the garage on 57th.

So Charles drove home. For that night, he allowed himself to feel safe behind the walls of his fortress. He piled onto the sofa with Raven, Moira and Hank to watch an old Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy movie, the last thing on the TV station before it signed off for the night. There was popcorn in a big ceramic bowl, and everyone’s feet in socks, and more laughter than he’d remembered an hour could contain. He was tired enough to sleep without dreams.

But he awoke seeing the world through Katy’s eyes. This sunrise she never knew – this house so much larger than the little apartment she’d tried to turn glamorous – the day emptier without her in it.

It was past time for him to get to work.

Charles went into his office in the city. File folders were piled on his desk, with various notes demanding that he make one call or return another. This he did as swiftly as possible, leaving his door open so no one would call him standoffish. Once decks were cleared, though, he closed the door. Opened the window so that the cigarette smoke from the others would disperse. Let the background sounds of traffic turn into so much white noise.

And he got to work.

Chalk dust yellowed his fingers as he wrote on his board: UNIFORM. Did the killer disguise himself as a deliveryman, repairman, even as a cop, to gain access to his victims?

But that felt wrong. Katy had been surprised by his presence immediately – there had been not even one instant when she believed in any false pretext. A stranger had been at her door; then he had killed her.

So the uniform was not a disguise. Either it was purely utilitarian – something that could be bought cheaply, bloodied and discarded without further concern – or it was real. Given the glimpse Charles had seen through Katy’s eyes of a dingy, slightly worn uniform, Charles suspected the latter.

Without any clearer recollection than that, Charles couldn’t use this fact to identify the killer. Yet it told him a great deal.

First, what money he had was more likely to be inherited than earned, and what there was of it was probably tied up in the house where the killer did his dirty work. This one went to work every day at a job low-status enough to require a uniform (coverall? Something khaki, or perhaps gray). So the man they sought needed to earn his daily bread, if not the rent.

Second, the killer was not wholly disorganized. Charles had suspected this already from the care taken in dumping the bodies, but it was good to have confirmation.  Their target was capable enough to hold down a steady job, one that would demand set hours – as most jobs with uniforms did. This one punched a clock. He had a routine. This one needed his pension.

Third, the killer was more impulsive than Charles would have thought. He had stalked and murdered Katy while wearing his work uniform; the blood would have to have spattered it. Did that make him call in sick for a night shift? (Jotted down quickly with his fountain pen: _Look for unexplained absences on date of last murder._ )  Would he have to buy another uniform? That could get his pay docked. Make him angry.

(Jotted down underneath his first note: _Check with uniform supply stores about repeated replacements of the same coveralls_.)

The next word on the chalkboard was BLOOD, which Charles could have explained if anyone had asked him about it. The next was FALLING, which he could not have. He didn’t even know what it meant himself. All he knew was that the image of that flayed body in the leaves had merged in his head with the image of Katy dead on the floor, and he knew the killer had watched them both fall. Had enjoyed it. This was not unique enough to be modus operandi or signature, but it had lodged into Charles’ mind, and he meant to examine it for what it was worth.

He continued mulling this over until a box arrived around midday: the case files from the NYPD. In the cardboard box, atop the files, was a note on yellow ruled paper: _Everything you asked for, and a couple more cases I’m wondering about. Call me if you need anything; obviously I’ll let you know if something comes up here._

No signature, just Erik’s phone number at the bottom.

Given how they’d been with each other, the note came across as terse – but Charles understood. Erik still distrusted his welcome. Still wanted to stay within the margins he’d set for himself.

It was time to step back and let Erik get used to the idea of letting others into his life. Besides, this case required Charles’ full attention; tantalizing as the cool, precise mind of Erik Lehnsherr was, no infatuation could be allowed to distract from the hunt.

So Charles did what Moira called “burrowing in.”

The deli on the corner began to expect a call every day almost exactly at noon for a chicken salad sandwich on toast, with dill pickle. When he got home late at night, there was usually something waiting on a dish in the fridge for him to heat up. Moira kindly saw to his laundry, for which he understood he would owe her, but later. The house took on a new resident, who he duly welcomed, but left it to the others to make her at home. Charles let the ordinary world wither while he tried to understand a killer’s mind.

This was the critical part – the grueling part. All his life Charles had sought the best in people; he was no cockeyed optimist, but someone who knew that even the worst and most hostile souls sometimes admitted moments of beauty. Because of his power he had no choice but to know this. It would be easier to believe in pure evil. Sometimes Charles envied those who could believe in it. Far more difficult to walk in a world where evil existed, but as part of human beings who said hello to their neighbors, or took good care of their pets, or liked the same movies you did. Evil was not some demonic entity that took over the unwilling. It was a disease, or a choice, sometimes both so inextricably intertwined that all Charles’ abilities could not separate them.

The week flowed into the next. Charles’ supervisor at the FBI made a comment about his hair, wondering whether he would be reading his poetry in Greenwich Village anytime soon.  But he did not assign Charles any further cases, which was all that mattered. Charles sat at his desk for hours on end, staring down at the photos of the dead.  Katy. Ellie. Bao-Zhi. Nora. John Doe.

Always the photos. Always the fallen. The images were so different and yet so alike.

Late one afternoon, Charles found himself looking back and forth between Katy on the floor of her apartment and John Doe in the leaves of Inwood Park. Back and forth. Finally he stood and wrote on the chalkboard one word, RED.  He could not say why it mattered, and yet he felt that it did.

That intuitive leap, however, was followed by the usual burnout. Thank God it was Friday; he went home more or less on time, bearing pink roses for Moira and a promise to look over her thesis posthaste, not to mention catch up on his own damned laundry.

“You look crazed,” Raven said flatly as they gathered in the kitchen, while Moira put her roses in water.  “That’s it. No creepy stuff for you until Monday, and honestly you should consider calling in sick then, too. If you push it, we’ll make you go see a Doris Day movie.”

“No need for such drastic measures.” Charles could already feel the walls of his fortress high and strong around him. His chosen family stood as strong around him as the stones and mortar. It was a relief to let it all go for a time. “It’s supposed to be nasty weather straight through. We’ll have a cozy weekend in. Cook mounds of pasta.”

And, he thought, they could have company.

Erik had written his phone number on one of the memos – customary practice so that he could be reached in his off-hours. Still, Charles felt he could put it to good use.

The answer came on the first ring. “Lehnsherr,” Erik said, all business. He received few personal calls, then.

“Hello there. It’s Charles Xavier.”

“Oh. Hello.” Erik’s voice softened in that first, off-guard moment. But the cop returned in his next words. “Has there been another murder?”

“Mercifully, no. He’s not escalating as fast as I thought.” The walls of the fortress trembled, and Charles imagined himself bricking them up again, making them impregnable. “Actually, I was wondering whether you were off-duty at any point this weekend. You should come back out to the house.”

The hesitation on the other end of the line stretched out long enough for Charles’ awkwardness to become concern. But Erik said, “I – I’m off duty on Saturday.”

“Then come.” Charles envisioned a warm, blazing fire stoked high with logs, light tinted the orange of a summer sunset. At this distance he could not influence Erik’s mind without considerable concentration, which he did not employ; this daydream was meant only to warm his voice, so that Erik might hear the promise.

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

“Do you play chess?”

The set in Charles Xavier’s study was as casually opulent as the rest of the house: pieces carved of marble, set on a board checkered with inlays of different precious woods as richly striped as tiger’s pelts. “I’m out of practice.”

Charles smiled as he poured himself a second glass of the cabernet. “No time like the present to renew your acquaintance with the game.”

“Perhaps.”

Erik wanted to play – wanted very badly to match his mind against Charles’, to see how he thought, how he strategized – but he distrusted the desire. What surprised him was that Charles didn’t distrust it in turn.

He had not expected the invitation. As friendly as Charles had been despite Erik’s … indiscretion, Erik had still thought the great warm house would be closed to him thereafter. Had he not believed himself safe, he would have prepared a refusal. Instead he had found himself stammering like a schoolboy on the phone, twisting the cord between his fingers and promising himself to a night with Charles that had nothing to do with their shared case.

For the cause, he had told himself. They were each of them protectors of their fellow mutants; it was better that they know each other and work together as needed. And this was one of the only nights Erik had spent mostly in the company of his own kind.  He’d been startled to see Angel come down the stairs for dinner; wearing jeans and a sweater, she looked like any other girl her age – and it was startling to realize just how young that age was. As they ate their spaghetti and meatballs, Hank had padded around the kitchen with his oversize feet bare, and Raven had transitioned from blue to blonde and back a few times. Charles passed people Parmesan and water without having to be asked first, at least not aloud.  Moira had showed no sign of discomfort at being surrounded by mutants, and was so charming and bright that Erik thought he would have liked her very much, were he not so desperately jealous. She was a true ally, he thought; this was not an idea he had ever entertained about a human before.

But Erik knew he had not come here to serve any grand purpose. He had come to be near Charles.

“Of course you did,” Charles said lightly. “It’s like I told you – we need to spend some time away from the case. Without minimizing its importance in any way, I mean. You and I, we’ll be working together for mutants long after we’ve caught this killer. At least, I hope we will. So we should start getting to know one another better.”

“Yes.” How stupid of him to want to read more into that. This was only good strategy; Erik would have expected no less.

“Here,” Charles said, pouring Erik a second glass as well. “We can talk, while you make your mind up about the game.”

Charles knew he was hesitant to play chess. Charles knew everything. How could he simply sit there on the leather couch, smiling warmly at Erik, knowing what he knew?

Then Erik realized there was one way to know that; he could ask. At long last, there was someone who might be able to answer.

Erik took a deep drink of the wine, then went to stand by the fireplace. The mantel was ornately carved, and he forced himself to concentrate on every curve and swirl, so that he could not turn and see Charles’ face as he spoke. “There’s a question I’ve wanted to put to you.”

“Anything.”

Who could possibly say that and mean it? But Charles seemed to.  Still facing the fire, feeling its heat, Erik said, “Your gifts mean that you know a great deal about others. About me.”

“Yes.” Charles’ voice echoed slightly; he’d spoken into his wineglass.

“You know that I – that I’m a – ”

“That you are a homosexual.” It was said softly, without censure; that alone caught Erik’s heart in its grip. “Yes, I’ve known since the beginning.”

“Can you tell me – was this done to me?”

A pause followed. “Done to you?”

“In the camps – there was a man, he called himself Schmidt but his true name was Sebastian Shaw. He experimented on mutants, even though he was one himself. He murdered my mother in front of my eyes, just to see how it would make me react.” Erik felt Charles’ pain for him – actually felt it, crashing against him like a wave – but forced himself to go on. “For years there were tests, experiments, isolation, exposure … anything he could think of to analyze me. “ There was no need to say the worst, the ways Shaw had touched Erik, had forced him to touch Shaw in return. Charles could see it; he was the only one Erik could bear to know that truth. “I wondered if he changed me. Whether he did this to me, turned me into a man who only wanted other men.” 

It would have been only one of Shaw’s many dirty tricks.

“What happened to this Shaw?” Charles said, and there was steel in it, a hardness Erik had not known he possessed. How dangerously good it felt to think that Charles would hate his enemy for his own sake.

“He’s dead. I killed him. His mutation made it difficult but – it turned out he could drown.”  Erik dared to turn his head then; Charles had not moved from his place, but the wine was forgotten. His attention was only for Erik. “Do you despise me for that?”

“Seeing him through your eyes –” Charles’ voice failed him, and he had to swallow. “I don’t despise you. I could cheer you. My God, Erik.”

“Did he change me? Was that was happened, what he did to me, or one of the tests I didn’t understand? I just want to know why. It would be easier to bear.”

There. He had given someone his most shameful secret – someone he trusted, someone he cared for – and instead of killing him, it felt … lighter. Erik’s head swam, and he wondered again who Charles Xavier was, what hold he possessed upon him, to make him so heedless. Yet he somehow knew it would be all right.

Charles slumped back into the sofa, obviously searching for words.  “Erik – I can’t answer that. Many people are homosexuals, and I don’t think there is a reason why. Or if there is, it’s different for everyone.”

Erik had realized this might be the answer, but still he felt the blow, sharp, beneath the ribs. “Oh.” He sat down heavily on the far edge of the sofa, which was so large that he was still a few feet from Charles.  

“I wish you wouldn’t punish yourself for it. Feeling as you feel – it’s not shameful. Nor wrong.”

What a ludicrous thing to say. But that was Charles, always trying to be forgiving.  “I can never marry, nor have a family. Not being what I am. It would be cruel.” How close he had come with Magda, long ago; how she had cried when he left her. Yet Erik knew it was the greatest kindness he’d ever done his childhood sweetheart, freeing her to find a man who would truly want her and give her the normal life he was denied.  “I’m not – normal.”

“We’re mutants, for God’s sake. Who says normal is the be-all, end-all of – forgive me. I don’t mean to make light of what you’re going through. Honestly, I understand … better than you think I do.” Charles picked up his wineglass, then put it down again without taking a sip. “In, ah, in my case, I’ve wondered whether the mutation isn’t part of it.”

Erik didn’t follow.

Charles continued, “I’m a telepath, and so I perceive what’s inside people, not just what’s outside. I’ve always wondered if that was why I could feel attraction to men and women. Experience desire for both sexes, instead of just one. Would that be true if I weren’t a telepath? I don’t know. I can’t know. But it doesn’t matter. It’s a part of me I’ve accepted.”

Realization came over Erik in a rush, the same kind of overwhelming adrenalin static that accompanied great fear. He associated it with standoffs, hostage situations, shootouts. Hair standing on end, a kind of deafness, shallow breathing – they were all the ways the body warned of incredible danger, close and coming closer.

So Erik sought safety. “But you don’t – you can choose. You’re with women, like Moira.”

“Mostly. Being with another man has risks; obviously I don’t have to tell you that. It’s more difficult. It’s not something I would do casually. Not a way I’d make myself available for just anyone.”

Their eyes met, and Erik knew. He did not trust it – tried not to believe – but he knew.

Then Charles whispered, “For you – for you I think I’d do anything.”

The shock kept Erik utterly still as Charles shifted closer on the sofa, brought one hand to Erik’s cheek, and kissed him.

For the first moment it was as terrifying as it was arousing; Erik could have pushed him away, knew he should have. But then the heat of Charles’ mouth painted his, and his lips parted, and their tongues met. Erik’s arms went around Charles. He was lost.

The taste of him – wine and Charles together – it flowed into Erik, enveloped him like the warmth of the fire. His hands sought Charles’ unruly hair, his cheeks raspy with stubble, the rise and fall of his rib cage. Their bodies slid toward one another, fit against each other. Charles’ thigh overlapped his knee; his fingers stroked along Erik’s biceps, his shoulders, his throat.

Erik had kissed men before, but in bars and bathhouses, furtive, without the exchange of emotion or even names. Until this moment he hadn’t known such a kiss could be tender. It looked like this when men and women kissed, when they were in love.

“Never knew?” Charles whispered against his cheek, between feather-soft kisses. “You never kissed anyone else like this? You and I, we have to make up for lost time.”

Another kiss on his mouth, deeper and wetter than the last. Erik heard himself making sounds he hardly recognized – helpless and hungry – and a feeling quivered deep within him that he understood was very close to joy.

Then Charles tugged at his collar – a button gave way – and Erik was himself again.

“Wait.” He pushed Charles back, rose abruptly from the couch.  “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry. Am I rushing you? I realize this is a leap. I just – you make me – God, Erik.”

The raw edge of need in Charles’ voice made Erik want to seize him. But he wouldn’t. For Charles’ own sake, he could not do anything so stupid and selfish. Wasn’t the explanation clear enough? Charles had said it was his telepathy that had this effect; Erik’s mind had poisoned Charles, created a mirror of his own need. Having so corrupted Charles, he could only make things worse by taking advantage.

“Poisoned? No. It’s nothing like that.” Charles stood too, though he left a few steps between them, a small mercy. “I would have been attracted to you no matter what. I would have cared for you, even if I couldn’t read your mind.”

“You don’t know that. It’s impossible to know.”

“Well, if I weren’t a telepath, I wouldn’t be who I am, would I?” How could Charles be so certain, so steady? How could he look at Erik like – like _that_? “We have a connection; you’ve sensed that as much as I have. And I know that I want you with everything that I am.”

Erik could have fallen over the precipice then. He clung tighter. “So you think we should have a homosexual affair instead of hunting for a killer of mutants.”

That did what his pleas had not; Charles jerked his head back, obviously shocked. “I – no. Of course not. It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“Maybe you won’t call this poison, but you’d call it a distraction, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re a formidable fighter,” Charles said quietly. “Quick with a feint, hard with a punch. And you’ll hit below the belt.”

Erik decided he hadn’t drunk so much wine that he couldn’t drive home. He almost didn’t care whether he had or not. Let him wrap his car around a tree, tear himself to shreds, rather than drag Charles down into his muck. “I’m going.”

“Please don’t. Not like this. I won’t – throw myself – Christ. As friends, Erik. Can we talk simply as friends? We’re that, at least.”

“At least.” How tremendous it should have felt to call Charles his friend; how empty it was instead. “So you should understand that I’m doing this as your friend.”

“I do. That’s the worst of it.”

At the door of the study, his hand on the knob, Erik said, “You can have everything a man ought to have, Charles. If you can lead a normal life, you should.”

He knew he had not convinced Charles, but at least no one stopped him as he left.

The drive back into the city had never seemed to take so long. As Erik sped through the Lincoln Tunnel, stripes of yellowish light flickering by overhead, he pursed his lips, felt how swollen they still were. His mouth still tasted like wine. Tomorrow he’d feel the bruise, tomorrow and long after. But Charles was far away now. They were safe.

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

Charles still paced in front the fireplace, as he had for the hour since Erik had left. The logs were almost ash now, the flames down to flickers, but he continued in the same path as the warmth ebbed away.

He’d known Erik distrusted how he felt. Charles had thought acceptance and attraction would be enough to conquer that. Apparently not. Erik would be more likely to hate Charles for wanting him than to accept his own answering desire.

 _A man of iron_ , Charles thought. _Black and cold, capable of taking damage and showing scars but still holding strong. Capable, too, of incredible beauty – but so, so hard to change or to move._

And this was what he’d set himself against, with weapons of good cheer and kisses and a cozy spaghetti night. So much for that.

It was well after midnight before he took himself off to bed. His mood was dark enough that he didn’t even bother getting fully undressed – simply kicked off his shoes and divested himself of his belt before lying back atop the covers. He’d thought Erik might be in this bed with him tonight. Weary and depressed, he closed his eyes …

The phone rang. At first Charles thought he’d only just drifted off, but dawn already brightened the windows outside. It was as though he hadn’t rested at all. Before the telephone could ring again and waken the others, Charles grabbed the receiver. “Charles Xavier.”

“It’s Erik.” Charles’ heart leapt, but only for a moment – the tone of Erik’s voice made it clear this was official business. “You need to come into the city. We have an ID on our John Doe.”

 

**

 

Reginald King had been a 45-year-old black male, married, a 17-year employee of the postal service. He was the father of two sons, twins, both of whom were studying at Morehouse University.

“On scholarship.” Mrs. King sat at her kitchen table, a paper napkin wadded in her hand. She had not wept, nor could Charles see any signs that she’d pulled herself together for the police, but she seemed to want to be prepared. “They’re bright young men.  A credit to us.”

A credit in a way she felt Reginald had not been – Charles could sense that now. Mrs. King was in shock about her husband’s death, but not truly grieving. “You hadn’t reported your husband as missing.”

“I thought – ” She shrugged, sniffed, glanced out the tiny window above her sink. “We mostly stayed together for the kids, the last several years. Now that Terry and Tim are off at school – I don’t know. Didn’t seem to be any point to it anymore. He’d been staying out nights for a while now. I’d more or less been expecting him to leave me, and I thought maybe he finally had. But I wouldn’t have ever guessed – ever wished – ”

Still she didn’t cry, but her fist tightened around the napkin.

Charles glanced away from her to the corner, where Erik stood. This morning they’d hardly acknowledged each other beyond perfunctory nods, but now that they were again immersed in the investigation, their paths seemed to be coming together again. They differed in so many ways, and yet they both understood this work.

Erik instinctively understood that he should be the one to lead. “Mrs. King, was there anything unusual about your husband’s skin?”

Instantly she straightened. Her face might have been a mask carved of wood. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Mrs. King said, voice even. The act would have been perfect had not her thumb begun shredding the paper napkin she held.

And, of course, had she not been sitting opposite a telepath.

“We think the man who murdered your husband has murdered before,” Charles said quietly. “And we think this murderer is … angered by physical oddities. It’s important to know for sure, though. We can’t protect others unless we’re able to be sure.”

Mrs. King wouldn’t look at him, but she began to talk. “Sometimes you could think there was something funny about his skin.”

“Funny how?” Charles remained very still, smiling gently; it was Erik, behind her, who took notes.

“Just how the light would catch it sometimes. Not all the time.” Clearly she wasn’t going to admit everything, but just as clearly she wanted the killer caught. “Sometimes Reginald used to joke – just joking, mind you – that he could make it change color. The boys believed it when they were little. Kids, they’ll believe anything.”

Charles’ eyes met Erik’s.  That was one question answered. His power illuminated that answer through the light in Mrs. King’s mind, showing him Reginald transforming for his family – shifting color as brilliantly and easily as a chameleon. It wasn’t the match of Raven’s gift; Reginald’s form and even his features always remained unchanged. Yet it had been wondrous in his way.

The killer had peeled it away from him to make him die.

“Mrs. King, was there any place your husband used to go to spend time with … friends? Other people who might have believed in that trick of the light, about his skin?” Erik said this very briskly, for the most part, and he allowed her to continue to shield herself.

So he knew his role, as Charles knew his own. Even as Mrs. King shook her head no, he saw the image in her mind: a park, but not one of the pleasanter ones … run down, peopled by people on the fringes, looking for a hit or a john.

Or, Charles would imagine, a place to try something out for people, something amazing, knowing that the people involved wouldn’t be believed even if they tried to tell.

The image coalesced into graffiti on granite, and Charles had it.

“Nowhere like that I could think of,” Mrs. King finally said, giving him a look that said he’d been quiet too long.

“Thank you for your help,” Charles said. “Once again, we’re all so sorry for your loss.”

As they walked out of the apartment, Erik gave him a sidelong look.  He liked the fact that they could still talk to one another, if only about the case; Charles wondered if maybe their attraction wasn’t the lost cause he’d taken it for last night.

“He was getting reckless,” Charles said as they made their way down the stairs. “The classic midlife crisis, from what I could see through her memories. Reginald ran around as a young man, straightened up and flew right for his wife and children, but then – then he started drinking again. Going out. And, it appears, showing off.”

Erik nodded, taking this in. Even now, when his emotions were so raw, he could be this focused. His mind was so cool, so bright, almost crystalline. Surely, surely a man like this would see past his own fears soon, look through all the pain and all the confusion and see Charles there, waiting for him.  Now, though, Erik’s concentration was unbroken; he said, “So where are we going?”

“Riverside Park.”

 

**

 

Charles had always liked Ulysses S. Grant – a wretched president but a great general and an unusually reflective man for a public figure of his time. Old tintypes showed him to have had kindly eyes. Despite the perception his powers granted him, the ability to see within another’s soul, Charles retained his belief that you could tell a lot by someone’s eyes.

Erik’s eyes were hard and searching, missing nothing, finding nothing. “This place is even worse than I remembered.”

“Pity, isn’t it?” Grant had deserved better than this. The building itself was splendid, but its placement left much to be desired. Riverside Park was among the sketchier public places in New York City even in its best sections, and Grant’s Tomb was not in one of the best sections.  Spray paint and scrawled obscenities defaced much of the monument’s surface, and trash littered the ground nearby. The women who wandered here, and a few of the boys, made no secret of their trade – a thought that bled over from Erik.

“They’ll turn secretive fast enough if we cross the street looking like this.” Charles gestured at their suits and long woolen coats. The polish on his shoes was so bright it shone. “Wait. I skipped ahead again, didn’t I?”

“I followed you. No, we can’t be of much use there. But I know someone who often swings by here for fares who won’t demand to be put on the meter. Usually, this time of day – ” Erik’s grim expression shifted into a smile that was no less fierce. “And we’re in luck.”

He raised his hand, and a cab crawled slowly to them. The driver was young, scarcely into his twenties, and even without Erik’s perceptions to draw upon, Charles would have known he was a mutant. His thoughts were entirely framed by the knowledge that he was different, born different, made different – and the pride he drew from that.

Charles decided he liked Armando Munoz already.

“Lehnsherr,” Armando said with a nod. “New partner already? You’re going through them faster and faster.”

“This is Agent Xavier of the FBI,” Erik explained. “We’re working together on an investigation.”

Armando’s expression clouded. “The Feds? Leave me out of it.”

His fear was for others, not himself.  How many mutants in the city did Armando know? Time to add to the number. Charles said, “We’re looking for someone who’s killing mutants. Hunting us. And we think the killer may have found one of his victims here.”

The _us_ had gotten Armando’s attention; his entire demeanor changed. “A murderer? Christ. I could’ve picked that guy up and not even guessed.”

“You still could.” Erik’s steely gaze kept sweeping the horizon, keeping a lookout. “Be vigilant.”

That was more foreboding than helpful, in Charles’ opinion, but in their situation, it was impossible to be too cautious. “We’re looking for a white male, early 30s, average height, extremely pale complexion, slightly stocky – ”

“The mushroom,” Armando said.

Charles and Erik exchanged a glance. “Come again?” Charles said.

“Sorry. That’s what I called him in my head. The mushroom. Kinda has the look of something that sprang up from the mud, you know? Not like he’s ugly, more like he’s – out of it, I guess you’d say.” Armando drummed the heel of his hand against the hard ring of the steering wheel, obviously trying to call up more details. “I’ve seen him here a few times, but I always thought he worked for the park. He wore some kind of uniform, so I figured he picked up trash, something like that. Not that the trash ever seems to get picked up here.”

All around the tomb, soda bottles and cigarette butts littered the straggly yellowing grass. With every gust of wind, crumpled pages of newsprint tumbled along. Erik said, “Can you describe the uniform?”

“Some kind of – coveralls, overalls, I don’t know.” Armando’s frustration was clearly rising. “Dammit. I can’t get a good picture of him in my head. His face … it’s the kind of face you can’t remember well, you get me? Like there’s nothing there, really.”

Charles could believe it. Through Armando’s mind he received only the faintest gleaning of their target, a pale figure always on the fringes, watching but unseen.  “Obviously if you see him again, you should contact us immediately.” He pulled one of his cards from his wallet; his fingers were clumsy from the chill. Time for gloves: Winter was coming. “But more immediately, we want to figure out how he spotted the person he found here. “

Armando’s eyes widened. “Oh, hell, it wasn’t Alex, was it?”

“Alex is still in custody,” Erik said. “This was a man named Reginald King.” He held out a photo that Mrs. King had given them – which was a breach of confidentiality, but Charles knew it was also the right move.  Armando shook his head, indicating both his relief and the fact that he’d never particularly noticed this man before.

“On the fringes,” Charles said, sifting through those images of “the mushroom” again. “On the outskirts of the park, you’re saying?”

“Yeah. And down by the river.” Armando gestured in that general direction. “I’m keeping an eye out from now on. You better believe it.”

“By the way, you should come out to the house sometime. We have a community of mutants, just outside the city.” Charles pointed to the address on the card.

“Tell me this is not a cult,” Armando said.

“I don’t think so,” Erik replied. “And they serve good spaghetti.”

Charles grinned then, and Erik almost seemed as if he would smile too. Was it possible that the night before really hadn’t been that disastrous? Maybe Erik’s kneejerk fear had diminished after a night to calm down and consider. Maybe this connection they had still stood a chance. He was tempted to peer into Erik’s mind, just a peek, to see – but Charles tried to avoid that kind of thing. It felt like cheating.

They decided to come back later in plainclothes to talk to some of the park regulars, but there was no point in wasting any more time before scoping out the area. Charles took the south perimeter, while Erik took the footbridge across the Henry Hudson Parkway, the better to check out what lay right next to the river. What they wanted to find were small, private areas where the attacker might have crept up on Reginald King.

Or, perhaps, on one of the others. Could he have found more than one victim here? This seemed like an unlikely place for Katy the fashion design student to spend spare time, not to mention Eleanor Mobley Volstad. But they were near the Parkway – near 125th – which would only have made it easier for the killer to take an incapacitated victim to a private space not far away –

 _What did you see here?_ Charles demanded of the shadowy vision of the killer he held in his mind. _What drew you to this place?_

Almost on instinct, he swept outward with his power. The junkies’ minds were the least useful – high-pitched, like the squealing of a microphone too close to an amplifier. A couple of the sober prostitutes saw this place all too clearly, knew every scrawl of the graffiti by heart. Erik’s mind was by far the clearest; it swept like a searchlight through the detritus heaped by the river.

And then, though another mind, he saw Erik. Took in his careful steps, the way he looked through the underbrush, the lines of his profile silhouetted against the gray river.

Someone was watching Erik closely. Charles’ first thought was that it was a hooker worried about getting busted – or a dealer – but no. This gaze was unafraid. Eager.

Hungry.

Charles’ eyes opened wide. They’d found the killer.

And the killer had found Erik.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Erik had used his power almost on a whim.

This was something he rarely did, particularly in public where he could be seen, but he remained distracted, on edge and overly aware of Charles’ proximity.  He had also spent a long, restless night thinking of what had so nearly happened between them.  Stupid, to have let his guard down – to have tempted Charles into something he obviously shouldn’t countenance for a second – and he’d laid awake for hours. The fantasies he’d harbored since meeting Charles had taken on color and power now that Erik knew he was desired in return, now that they were illustrated with the taste of Charles’ mouth and the memory of his embrace. Erik’s cock had stayed so hard for so long that it hurt. But getting himself off would mean thinking of Charles, and he couldn’t think of Charles like that, not ever again, so –

It had been a hellishly long night.

Today he’d had to face Charles again, and the fact that their connection seemed no weaker for the weekend’s unpleasantness.  This was both wonderful and horrible at once. Even behaving normally in Charles’ presence was hard work.

So Erik was exhausted. He didn’t bother stooping to flip over any of old abandoned license plates or beer cans in his search for evidence; he simply tossed them aside while staring at them, hands in his pockets.

Above him cars roared by, blocking his view of the ruin that was Riverside Park. Below him was a 20-foot drop into the Hudson. Beyond that, New Jersey.  If there were a more vile stretch of New York City, Erik did not care to know it.

Would Reginald King really have come down here to practice? Perhaps he could be certain of remaining unseen, as no one else in his right mind would –

_Erik?_

Charles’ voice in his head was so loud, so overwhelming, that it stopped Erik in his tracks. He’d had no idea Charles could do this – practically take him over – __

_Erik, he’s here, he’s seen you, he’s right there right now!_

And Erik turned in the split second before something slammed into the side of his head, hard.

Stunned, he stumbled backward. Almost instantly, he tried to reach out with his power – but the pale figure next to him wore little to no metal, and he must have struck even harder than Erik had thought from the blazing pain. Because already Erik’s knees were buckling beneath him, and as he started to fall, an unfamiliar and unwelcome hand caught him under the shoulder, fingers digging into the flesh of his underarm the way a hook dug into a fish.

“Stop! Hands in the air!” That was Charles’ voice, too distant. “Let go of him and put your hands in the air, _now_!”

Any minute Charles would seize the killer’s mind – Erik could sense that, knew he was safe –

\--but that was the minute his attacker used to push him off the drop, and Erik tumbled down and fell into the river.

Cold water slammed into him on every side. Weightlessness surrounded Erik, and for a moment his disorientation rendered everything surreal. He neither knew nor cared where he was. At least the pain seemed to have gone far away.

But awareness jabbed into his mind, sheathed and shaped as Charles: _You’re injured, you’re stunned, he’s thrown you in the Hudson to keep me from going after him – Erik, snap out of it and swim!_

Erik tried to paw at the water, but his arms didn’t seem to want to obey. Nothing mattered but the dullness in his brain and the heaviness in his limbs.

Yet he was not motionless. Already the currents of the river had claimed him, and it seemed as though his trenchcoat might be torn from his shoulders. Cold currents swept past his face, streamed through his hair.

He tried to breathe, sucked in water, and for the first time struggled. Some feeble effort combined with a trick of the current to bring him to the surface, but no sooner had Erik gasped a lungful of air than the river dragged him down again. Cold and shock combined to make Erik even less capable of controlling his movements than he had been before.

 _Erik, hang on!_ Charles’ desperation swelled tight inside Erik’s own body, like the breath he was attempting to hold too long.

Then Erik felt something extraordinary – through Charles’ mind, he sensed Charles reaching out for someone else besides. The killer, he first thought, but then the words came smashing through in a voice he recognized: _I’m on my way!_

Armando Munoz was running to the rescue. Erik could feel Armando’s body as well as his own as surely as Charles could, even as Armando reached the water’s edge and dove.

Erik got it then. Charles was using all his psychic power, all his strength, to be deeply within Erik’s and Armando’s minds at once, the better to guide them to one another. It meant surrendering any chance he had of mentally seizing the killer, but Charles only wanted to save Erik.

For his part, Armando seemed eager to help – and though Charles, Erik could feel the astonishing change taking place with Armando even now. As Erik fought to even move his arms, Armando swam with greater and greater assurance and speed. His hands formed webbing between the fingers, which caught the currents like fins. Astonishingly, gills opened up in his neck – what a sensation, cool water rushing in through the sides of his throat and yet providing all the relief of a deep breath.

Armando’s body, lithe and amphibian, making the river his home – Erik’s own dead weight, numbly tossed among the currents – and Charles, standing on the bank, looking vainly at the dull churning water –

Once more Erik tried to inhale. Once more, the frigid, oily waters of the Hudson clogged his mouth and his lungs. He coughed into the river, but by now his lungs were made of fire, about to split his chest in two.

But Armando was close, close, so close – Charles’ mind, keyed in to them both, guided Armando toward him like a beacon –

A firm arm caught Erik around the chest and towed him sharply upward. Erik’s face broke the surface of the water, and he gasped desperately. Armando remained beneath the river, breathing through his gills, swimming surely and easily back to shore.

Erik’s blurry vision just made out the shape of Charles, dark at the river’s edge, in the last instant before he passed out.

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

Charles ran from the riverbank, pushing himself up the steep slope even though his heart was already pounding. He wanted nothing more than to stay by the water until Erik was on land again – to pull him up, see him to safety – but he couldn’t.

With his mind he reached out in a dozen directions at once. The sudden splintering of his consciousness made his steps falter, and yet he had to try harder – give up even more of himself to go outward, ever outward, until he found the killer again.

The litter-strewn park and beat-up cabs in front of him fuzzed and grayed until they were only static, like an image half-glimpsed on a television with no antenna. Charles gulped in a breath and steadied himself, or attempted to. It was hard to tell now that he perceived no up, no down, only the hundreds of minds all around him, suddenly crowded close.

They were everywhere. Everyone. Whether ten feet away or at the edges of the island, every single soul in Manhattan now pressed in on Charles at once.

And because he sought ugliness, ugliness was what he found.

 

_Nobody has to know. Nobody has to know. I asked him to be a good boy and not tell, and Tim’s always a good boy. Besides, it’s not like I really did anything. He just sat on my lap. Bet he doesn’t even realize the rest. And Carol was nice to me this morning, so he didn’t tell her, and if he didn’t tell his mother he’ll never tell anyone –_

_Kikes always rip you off. Fake, my ass. This was Mom’s wedding ring! Some Yid trying to tell me Pop bought Mom a fake. He just didn’t want to give me what it was worth. Cheap, just like all of ‘em –_

_Bet that old bag is 80 at least. That purse just dangling from her fingers. Could just grab it, but better show her the knife just in case –_

_If this stupid bitch doesn’t stop crying, I’ll give her something to cry about. I paid my money and if it takes longer than she likes, I didn’t pay her to like it. How about this, honey? You like this better? No? Then shut up, just shut up and take it –_

_That man was different too. Different like me. Big and strong. But not strong enough. I almost had him, almost almost almost –_

_Antifreeze. They say it’s sweet. I could slip it into a milkshake, give him that. Tell him I put some brandy in it or something. The fat slob gulps down everything I put in front of him. Wonder if it hurts, dying like that? I hope it hurts._

Charles tried to pull himself free of the morass, but he couldn’t. It felt like drowning in tar.

And yet he knew he’d found the killer – he had collided with that mind, hot and sticky with imagined blood. He was close; he had to be.

So Charles took a deep breath and forced his mind to the here and now. The world jerked back into place around him with a tortured squeal like tearing metal, and pain lanced through his head so vividly that for the first time he thought he was aware of the divisions within his brain. He brought his hands up; the gun still clenched in his sweaty fist was now leveled directly in front of him. A few people – just passengers waiting for a bus – cried out and scattered.

He didn’t move. Didn’t shout. Just used his eyes to see if the pale killer was anywhere within sight.

No such luck.

“Dammit,” Charles whispered, his voice shaking. “God damn him to hell.”

If he could not pull the killer out telepathically, and could not see him to aim his weapon, then he’d lost the man. Probably he’d taken off running the moment he threw Erik into the Hudson to drown. He could be ten or fifteen blocks away by now; on the crowded streets of New York City, that was as good as gone.

Charles let the gun fall to his side again. He breathed out once, sharply. People around him stared, but no one challenged him. Wisely, of course. Nobody saw anything but a panting, armed madman. No doubt a few of them were hoping he would turn away so they could call the cops. (Unnecessary. He’d taken the mind of a bystander and gotten them to call police and ambulance the moment Erik dropped into the water, a breach of his own personal rules for his power but one he would commit again without hesitation.)

 _Stupid,_ he thought, and now his anger was for himself.

He ought to have predicted this. Ought to have known. Pattern killers often returned to the place where they’d overpowered or murdered their victims. It allowed them to relive the excitement. Charles might have ordered a stakeout of the place; with even the minimal description Armando had been able to provide, they could have gotten very lucky.

Instead, Erik had nearly died. Just the memory of that, of the pale figure striking Erik, and Erik sinking down as though he were dead already –

“Dammit,” Charles repeated. Then he holstered his gun and ran back toward the river.

A small crowd had gathered by the riverside; lying on the ground amid them was Erik, so still that Charles thought for one horrible moment that he might have drowned just at the point of rescue. But then Armando, kneeling at Erik’s side, looked up, and what Charles saw in his face was not despair but hope.

“How is he?” Charles skidded down the slope toward them.

“Out cold, but he’s breathing.” Armando ran one hand over his head; water droplets still beaded there, and his jeans and flannel shirt remained stuck to his skin. He’d shucked his jacket at the top of the hill in the first second of his mad dash to save Erik; now he had to be freezing. Charles might at least have fetched it for him.  “In shock, I’d guess.”

A skinny girl standing off to one side ventured, “How’d you even know he was out there?”

“I saw him fall in.” The lie was quick and smooth; Armando was good at this sort of thing.

“You were magnificent,” Charles said. “Truly heroic.” Armando’s only response was a bashful smile, which at that moment felt like the only sincere, positive emotion in the world.

Sirens began to echo in the caverns of the skyscrapers nearby. Surely they were coming for Erik; he needed help, now.

Charles dropped to his knees beside Armando. With a shaking hand he brushed Erik’s wet hair from his face.

 _Don’t you leave me,_ Charles thought. It was asking him to stay alive, and more besides. After this, patience was impossible. Restraint impossible. Erik would see it, now. He had to.

Charles’ bruised, stretched powers began to ripple again. What floated to the surface was as sick and twisted as the evil he’d sought before. Half the people standing around Erik were there out of a ghoulish fascination, wondering what it would be like to see someone die. One guy was wishing that Armando and Charles would turn aside for a second, so he’d have a chance to steal Erik’s wallet.

It wasn’t as though he’d ever doubted the presence of wickedness in the world. That was why he’d refashioned his home in his mind – from the barbarous place where his stepfather and stepbrother had abused him to his fortress, his one safe place.

But it no longer felt as though the fortress could be enough to save Charles from despair.

 


	15. Chapter 15

The ears had been easy to keep. Formaldehyde wasn’t that difficult to come by, so he simply filled up a pickle jar and put them in. He could turn the jar over and over, watch the ears dance. They’d shriveled a little, like wilting flowers, but he thought they were still good.  Probably the feet were too, but he hadn’t been able to find a glass jar big enough for them. They were in a barrel he’d taken from work.

(Louie had asked about it, had yelled at him and called him a dummy, but he couldn’t prove it hadn’t fallen off the truck. In the end he didn’t even get written up for it.)

He had pried the barrel open to look at the feet and touch them a couple of times, but the fumes were so strong they made his nose run and his eyes water. Maybe he could buy some of those paper masks doctors wore. Or fumigators, maybe – would those be easier to get? And some goggles.  A diving mask would work, even. Then he could hold the feet more often.

Tanning hides turned out to be a mess. He’d been able to skin the first one all right – he’d started practicing on stray dogs years and years ago, before he was even grown. A person was larger, heavier, tougher to handle, but it turned out to be the same basic idea. Just a bigger job.

Bloodier, too. The concrete floor was so stained it would never wash clean. He smiled at the thought.

But keeping the skin, that was tough. He’d never bothered keeping any dog’s fur. Mom would have found it, and then she would have used the switch again.  Called him stupid, and evil, like she always did.

Well, he wasn’t stupid. He’d gone to the library and checked out some books about tanning, along with a couple other books about American Indians, so the librarians wouldn’t wonder. It was a flash of ingenuity of which he was still proud, mentally holding it up and lording over it just like the ears.

The books hadn’t told him everything, though. They explained the idea – “stretch the hide” – but how tight, exactly? “Scrape off the hair” – that had been the biggest mistake, because he’d torn right through the scalp, and even though that was only a small rip, it ruined all the fun of it.

In the end he’d just thrown the skin out, buried it in the back not far from where he used to put the dogs when he was done with them.

This one wasn’t going much better. She’d only had so much skin worth taking, but keeping the fur was the whole point, and it was trickier to do with fur. Already it puckered at the edges, and the smell wasn’t getting any better. He’d end up throwing it out too.

At least he had the claws. He’d polished them until they gleamed like mother of pearl.

He remembered how the girl had looked, lying there limp on the ground.  It was the first time he’d ever taken a bra off anyone besides Mom in those last few months, when he even had to wash her and change her diapers – and she was the one who had called _him_ dirty, well, he’d showed her in the end –

\--no. He wasn’t going to think about Mom. That just ruined everything.

Better to think about the golden girl lying there where she fell. He hadn’t touched her in any of the bad places, but for a few moments he’d laid his hand on the fur of her back.

The memory made him fumble at his belt. His fist squeezed. Squeezed harder.

He imagined the girl lying there, the heaviness of the thud as she fell.

He imagined the man from yesterday and how he’d hung there, ready to drop. The man’s arm had been thick in his hand – just like this, just like this –

Oh, that was better. That was lots better. The man from the park, the one who moved metal – he was strong. But he could be beaten down. That man could be made to fall. Then he would be the one lying on the floor, having to watch the knives come out.

(Maybe he could be made to watch more than that. This was something not yet dared – something dreamed of – something that made him get all stiff and sticky and that was good, good, good.) 

How could you steal what that man could do? It didn’t show. How could you take it for yourself?

No telling. No knowing. He’d just have to cut out the heart.

 


	16. Chapter 16

“Appears to be in shock – ”

“No reason to be alarmed – the cold alone – ”

“Detective Lehnsherr? Can you tell me what year it is?”

A thumb tugged at his eyelid, and painfully bright light shone in. Erik tried to turn his head. “1965,” he croaked. His throat still tasted like the river.  If they asked him any more questions, he did not answer them, or did not recall.

His arm ached as a blood pressure cuff tightened around it. “Hold this under your tongue,” a nurse commanded as a thermometer was slipped between his lips. Even that small amount of motor control was nearly beyond him.

“Let him rest –”

“No permanent damage – ”

“We’ll alert you when – ”

Erik’s head lolled back onto the hospital bed; the paper pillowcase crinkled beneath, nearly all he could hear besides the heart monitor beeping by his side. For a time he was asleep, or in some hushed, insensate condition that could pass for sleep.

When he stirred again, it was clearly nighttime; just as clearly, he would be unable to check out until the morning. Nor was there any chance of having his questions answered …

_Erik?_

_Charles._ It was surprisingly easy to speak to him this way. _Where are you?_

_Sleeping in the waiting room. Well, not sleeping. Lying across a chair with my eyes closed, wishing for a bed._

He stayed. It moved Erik more than he would have expected … and Charles _knew_ that, he had to know …

_Are you all right, Erik? The doctors say you were just stunned, in shock from the blow and the water, but you frightened me._

_I’m better._ Erik had been in fights before – far more savage battles than that – and yet he had never been so swiftly and utterly disarmed. To have been defeated without even a struggle by the very man going around killing their race: It racked him with both humiliation and fury.

Charles remained calm for them both. _Did you get a good look at him?_

A pale blur: Erik’s memory offered nothing else. _No._

_Damn. Me either. He threw you over hoping to distract me. It worked._

Erik would rather have been left to drown, if it meant catching the killer.

 _There wasn’t any time for analysis_ , Charles said – once again, leaping ahead in the conversation.

_When he takes his next victim, it will be my fault, Charles._

_If I had let you drown, if Armando hadn’t been willing to help,_ you _would have been his next victim._

Still, Erik thought it would have been better that way. The killer off the streets, Charles going back to his normal life – but he could sense the argument coming from Charles now (a sensation like static electricity, around an unnamed, once unknown border that he now understood to be his own mind.) He was too tired for it. _How is Armando?_

Charles accepted the change in topic. _Quite well. He’s a miracle, Erik – but you knew that. And he says he’ll come out to the mansion. Hank would love to get some readings on those gills._

Thinking of the mansion reminded Erik of the night before. Without the case to focus him, the memories overwhelmed him anew. Charles’ mouth open against his, Charles’ hands winding through his hair –

The telepathic voice flowed over him them, through him, sunlight through clouds. _I can’t stop thinking about it either._

At that moment, the light snapped on – harsh and yellow against his dark-accustomed eyes. The nurse’s smile was as angular and pointed as her paper cap. “Time to check your vitals, dearie.”

Erik only realized how feeble he still felt when he couldn’t muster the energy to protest this indignity.

Charles went silent, allowing Erik to concentrate on the mundane questions he was peppered with – yes, tired, no, not dizzy. The nurse’s fingers clamped around his wrist as if she wanted to cut off his pulse rather than take it, but she said he could leave the next morning if he continued to improve, so she would do.

Her departure was followed by long moments of silence. Erik lay still in the returned darkness, waiting for Charles to speak to him again so that he could resist it. But for a long while, Charles didn’t speak.

Had he gone home? Fallen asleep? Neither would be unreasonable. And yet Erik found himself reaching out with his mind, tracing that new boundary he now knew, searching for Charles in the margins.

 _There you are._ Charles dawned in his thoughts once more _. I wasn’t sure you’d call for me._

_I shouldn’t have._

_Erik – you’re injured, you’re tired. I don’t want to rush you. Just promise me we can talk about it again sometime very soon._

_No. We can’t._

He could feel Charles’ pain – actually feel it, though at an eerie distance. It was like seeing someone’s shadow elongated by the setting sun.

Then Erik’s eyes widened as Charles appeared in his hospital room.

Not entered. Appeared. Charles was a thought and then he was fog and then he was there, sitting on the edge of Erik’s hospital bed.

“Not really,” Charles said. There was something about his voice that told Erik he was still hearing it with his mind and not his ears, but it was impossible not to think of it as coming from Charles’ own mouth. “This is only a projection. I can’t teleport, more’s the pity. Saving you would have been easier today, and Armando could have stayed dry.”

Erik didn’t smile. Tried not to react at all. He had to be strong, to think of his friend’s welfare, to think of how much easier and better Charles’ life would be without him.

“I don’t agree.” Charles shook his head. The city lights outside the window painted his face in shades of soft blue; the illusion was so, so real.

“You’re a fool,” Erik said. “If we’d been seen together, we could have been arrested.”

“Who would see us? Moira? Raven? If you think either of them would report us – anyone in the mansion – then your cynicism is even deeper than I thought.”

“If you think everyone in the world is like Moira and Raven, you’re even more a fool than I believed you to be. Do you think our jobs would protect us? Those are the first things we’d lose.”

Charles gave him a look – impossible to translate, this look, but it was the first time Erik had ever thought of him as a wealthy man. “I’m not worried about that. Nor do you intend to remain a police detective forever. Besides – Erik, look at me. You can _look_ at me, though right now I’m sitting in the waiting room. Do you think I’d let anyone report us?”

What were the limits of Charles’ telepathic power? Were there any limits? Erik knew he should find this frightening – he distrusted any power he could not outsmart or overcome – and yet instead he found himself staring up at Charles in wonder.  

Charles leaned over him, and his eyes were just one more shade of blue in the night. He whispered, “Your secrets are safe with me.”

It was a vision of Charles – only a vision – more a fantasy than the real thing. So Erik told himself as he slowly sat up, bringing his face closer to the phantom. “I’ll always wonder about it. You and I.” The words shook. He was so weak, in soul as well as body. “If we – if we lived in another world entirely.”

“We make this world.” Charles’ hand closed over his, and the touch was so real that Erik felt the shock of it in his gut, in his pulse. Soon the nurse would be rushing back in to see what was the matter. “I realize hope is hard to come by. I understand that better than you might think. But for you I have to hope, Erik.  I have to ask you again, one more time. You don’t know what you are to me. I want you for yourself, never doubt that, but it’s more than that too, do you see? You’re – an oasis. Shelter from the storm. When I stand next to you, it’s as though the chaos of the world can’t touch me, not any longer.”

Erik found himself staring at Charles’ mouth – just as deeply flushed as he recalled, as close as they’d been last night in the moments before they kissed.  

So he watched Charles whisper, “Let me give you what you give me.”

Their heads tilted. Charles bent lower. It was all so real.

And for the first time ever, Erik realized that it was possible to love another man. That it could be love, not just lust, not merely the depravity of his body. What he felt for Charles in this moment transcended anything he’d known for another person since his parents died. For Charles, he would do anything. Give up anything. That could only be love.

Which was how Erik found the strength to stop.

He put one hand on Charles’ shoulder (solid, warm) and pushed him gently back. Charles didn’t so much move as become more insubstantial, but the pain in his eyes made it clear he understood.

“There is no shelter,” Erik said. “Not for either of us.”

Once again, the long shadow of Charles’ pain fell over him, but Erik used that to make himself stronger. He did this for Charles, to save him from the outcast life that was all Erik could ever offer him – whether or not that would ever be understood.

“You understand reality as well as I do, Charles. You’ve just forgotten for a time.”

Charles faded away, so quickly that for a moment Erik wondered if it had all been some strange dream.

But after a few moments, Charles’ voice returned, once again only a presence in Erik’s head. _Promise me one thing._

“If I can.” Erik continued to speak aloud. It felt less intimate, which was how it needed to feel.

_I’m going to go home now. But tomorrow, someone will be waiting to help you get home. Whatever security measures you take, you must double, starting immediately._

Erik didn’t understand – until he did.

Charles’ voice swept through him once more. _If you ever feel threatened, even think you’re being watched, you have to come live at the mansion. Don’t worry. I won’t – well, I won’t._

It was the sound of a door being closed forever, shutting his love on the other side. Yet even that pain was secondary to the terrible truth Erik now had to confront.

 _The killer has seen your face,_ Charles said. _He knows you’re a mutant. If he can find you again, he will. From now on, we have to assume – he’s coming after you._


	17. Chapter 17

 

“You may be superhuman, but you still have to sleep eventually.”

Charles looked up from the kitchen table to see Moira standing in the doorway. She wore the pale blue silk robe he’d given her for Christmas, and her auburn hair was mussed. “Did I wake you?”

“When you worry, it’s like – little tremors.” But Moira spoke gently. She hadn’t risen to complain, only to look out for him. “Do I stand any chance of getting you to go to bed?”

Though he felt weariness heavy behind his eyes, Charles could also see the paler sky that warned of dawn. “No point now.”

“Right. Making coffee.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “You’ve done enough for me lately. I don’t mean to – lean on you.”

“We’re friends,” Moira insisted as she took the coffeepot down from the cabinet. “Friends lean.”

Friends. Moira was possibly the best friend he’d ever had.

They’d met years before, when a mysterious mutant seemed to be causing trouble in Cuba – when he was still deciding between the Bureau and pursuing postdoctoral work, and when she was first realizing how dissatisfied she was in the CIA, where she would always and forever be looked down upon only because she was a woman. At first they’d been almost adversarial, though he’d realized instantly that he was attracted to her. Impossible not to be, with a woman like Moira – those perfectly shaped legs, that quicksilver mind. She’d had little patience with his “playboy” phase, though; in retrospect, he didn’t blame her.

That unknown, dangerous mutant had vanished from the radar almost as soon as he’d appeared, even before they’d identified him. When the CIA informed Charles his services would no longer be required, he’d assumed he’d never see the lovely Agent McTaggart again.

She’d called a few months later, though, after she washed her hands of the CIA – ironically, just before he’d moved to DC to train at Quantico.  They had met for drinks after he arrived, planning only to talk about the best graduate programs in genetics (for her) and the pitfalls of government bureaucracy (for him).

Within two hours they’d been back at her place, making love on the floor because they couldn’t hold off long enough to reach the bed.

Passion and friendship made for a powerful combination, and the engagement had seemed so natural at first. But Moira had turned out to dislike the way he always skipped ahead in conversations, reading her thoughts. Over time her acid humor came to seem more acidic than humorous, and the motherly care that he relished from a friend had irritated him wildly coming from a lover. They had different rhythms, different ways of resolving problems, different ideas of what exactly should be considered a problem and what shouldn’t. The romance had soured within a year, and just as Charles was beginning to repent buying her the ring, Moira had come to him and gently returned it.

She’d chosen the precise moment when they could still walk away without hard feelings. It had taken work to forge the relationship they had now – and there had been a couple of slips in either direction, both fierce arguments and a few stolen nights in each other’s beds.  Still, all the effort was worth it, because she was now the only person in the world he could imagine talking to about this.

“I’m falling for someone,” he said.

Moira’s hands hesitated, just for an instant, before she continued scooping coffee grounds into the filter. “The police detective. Erik Lehnsherr.”

“Yes. Was I that obvious?”

Moira nodded.

He’d told her of his attraction to men back in the days when they were first lovers, when he’d thought of it as part of his past, believed the confidence was just one more kinky whisper that might titillate her. Luckily, Moira had proved to be equally nonjudgmental about real-life situations. “Since you look like someone just shot your dog, I’m guessing he doesn’t feel the same way. Or he doesn’t – he’s not --?”

“He is. And he does feel the same way. But Erik hates that part of himself. He thinks I should go marry a nice girl and save myself the trouble.”

Moira smiled over his shoulder. “Trouble is, the nice girls know better.”

Somewhere, across town, Erik was checking out of the hospital. God only knew whether that madman was already watching for him, already on the prowl. But Charles’ insistence on pursing Erik when he should have known Erik wasn’t ready – his stupidity in raising the question after the attack, when Erik was wearier and more on guard than ever before – it all meant that Charles couldn’t be there to protect him when he needed it most.

“Hey.” Moira’s brow furrowed in concern. “Bad joke. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not that. It’s just – Christ.”

Moira snapped off the coffeepot and came to sit beside him. Her pale hand settled over one of his, and he gripped her fingers tightly. “You’ve got it bad, huh?”

He smiled wanly. “It’s more than that, besides.”

“Tell me.”

It was something she used to say when they were together, and it was more than an invitation for him to confide. Moira was reminding him not to skip ahead, not to read other’s minds and fall into the trap of assuming they could automatically understand his in return. To begin at the beginning, and be sure to say aloud what mattered most.

“Erik’s mind is – so sure. So steady. Even when he’s in pain, or when he’s confused – there’s this bedrock beneath it. He knows his purpose. He knows his limits. And yet – it’s like he’s learned everything about himself that most people never know, but never learned the simplest and most basic things about love, or trust, or hope.”

Moira just nodded. Her gaze was frank and searching, totally without jealousy. Charles wondered whether he could have given her the same generosity if their situations were reversed; he suspected not.

He continued, “I’ve leaned on Erik during this case. Because I could, because he could take it – but also because I’m realizing how much I need it.”

“What do you mean?”

Charles ran his hands through his hair, struggling for the words. “This job – what I do – I have to look at the darkest part of humanity, every day. I see ugliness most people can’t even imagine, and thank God they can’t. I don’t even get to glance away, except when I’m here.”

“The fortress,” she murmured. He had told her about this.

“There are cracks in the walls of the fortress, Moira. This killer – this man who hates us, even though I think he’s one of us – it gets to me. It makes me wonder who I can save. Whether I ever save anyone.”

“You do,” Moira said fiercely. “You know that you do. You’ve caught killers before, and you’ll get this one too. Is Erik all right?”

“In the hospital. Determined to go it alone, rather than have me panting after him for a relationship he won’t accept. So now he’s just walking around with a target on his back, thanks to me.”

She squeezed his hand again. “Every mutant is a target now. You’re the one pursuing the killer. That makes you Erik’s best chance, and everyone else’s, too.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say – not what I’m trying to get you to say, either.” Charles rose from the table and stared out the window at the rolling grounds that surrounded the mansion. “Moira, I can’t walk away from this work. Knowing what I know, seeing what I’ve seen, I must use my talents to stop killers like the ones we’re after now. But – more and more – I feel it changing me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The old Nietzsche line. The abyss. You know.” He was tired now, feeling the weight of the sleepless night. Hard bruised lines against his back and legs reminded him of his futile efforts to get comfortable in a waiting-room chair.

Moira came to his side; one of her soft hands briefly touched his shoulder. “You’re the most hopeful of us all, Charles. You’re the one who sees the future we can create. I’d hate for you to lose sight of that.”

“So would I.”

It had seemed to Charles for a while that Erik was the key to that. But how stupid, how contradictory. There was no safe place to stand, not here in the mansion, not in the shelter of Erik’s cool, precise mind. Every fortress could fall.


	18. Chapter 18

 

No other phantoms had visited Erik’s hospital room during the night, only the nurse.

“You went into shock,” she explained as he waited for the paperwork to be processed so that he could go home. “The cold water probably affected you more than the blow to the head – no brain swelling, no internal bleeding.”

Humiliating to have been taken out by something as simple as a dunk in the Hudson, but as Erik now felt no ill effects beyond exhaustion, he counted himself lucky.

The nurse insisted on pushing him to the door in a wheelchair. There was a stripe of faded, chipped paint on the floor where she stopped – the boundary line between the sick and the well. Erik’s eyes searched the area, both looking for Charles and hoping he would have held true to his word and gone home.

He had. But he’d summoned help.

“You’re looking better,” Armando said. He leaned against the wall in his heavy plaid jacket, fists jammed in his pockets.

“Thanks to you.”

Armando just shrugged. “That was something else, huh? It was like that Agent  Xavier – like I was the jet and he was the pilot. I mean, he asked first, so it was okay, but damn. I can’t decide whether that’s the scariest thing I ever did or the most fun. Little bit of both, most likely.”

Charles seemed to bring this out in people. “Just the same, I appreciate it. Did Charles tell you to come here today?”

“Said he wanted you home safe. Me, I’m about the only one who knows what the killer looks like. Also I’ve got a car. So come on for your free taxi ride, all right?”

He’d been taken to Columbia Presbyterian, so it was a long trip back to his place. Erik sat in the back seat, even though he was in the cab as a friend and not a fare; old habits died hard.

Armando said, “I was thinking about going out to that mansion of his. Hanging out there for a while.”

“He’s legitimate, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I wasn’t asking anything, really. Just saying you might not find me around Riverside Park so much.” At the stoplight, Armando’s eyes sought his in the rear-view mirror. “We ought to sit down and talk connections. Some of the people you only reach through me – you’ll need to get them on your own, sometimes.”

“Not today.” Mostly Erik wanted to spend the day napping, brushing his teeth to get the taste of the Hudson River out, and resolutely not thinking about Charles Xavier.

“Yeah, you’ve been through it. But soon. I get the feeling better things are ahead for me, you know? Maybe for all of us.”

Just like that – just that simply – Armando could see the shining future Charles dreamed of. And for the first time, Erik asked himself why he couldn’t see it either.

 

**

 

He didn’t see Charles again until the following Monday, when Erik was allowed to return to duty. 

Mulroney, however, didn’t agree that this was duty. He bellowed at Erik in the station: “Since when are you the FBI’s Stepin Fetchit, huh? I’ve been stuck at a desk while you run around trying to guess who the killer is through some kind of psychiatrist bullshit.”

“Psychologist.” Charles’ voice echoed from the hallway behind Erik. He turned to see him there; when their eyes met, the utter desolation he saw in Charles shocked him. And yet Charles sparred with Mulroney as lightly as ever. “I’m not a psychiatrist. My doctorate is in psychology.”

“What the hell is the difference?” Mulroney demanded.

“I’d explain if you cared, but you don’t really, do you? If Detective Lehnsherr would prefer for someone else to take his place on the FBI team, it can be arranged.” Charles said this so coolly. And yet Erik knew it had hurt Charles more to say than for him to hear.

“I wouldn’t prefer,” Erik said. “Mulroney’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

Charles shrugged, a _there you have it_ move, and together the two of them walked away and left Mulroney to sputter. Only then did it occur to Erik that the sanest thing to do would have been to take Charles up on his offer.

That would have been only postponing the inevitable. Even if they would never become what Charles had asked for, what Erik had burned for, their paths were destined to –

 _To cross again_ , Erik thought before realizing that wasn’t right. Their paths led side by side.

As Erik attempted to absorb that thought, Charles said, “You didn’t have any trouble this weekend at the apartment?”

“I’d have told you if I had. There’s no reason to think the killer knows where I live or can even find out. At any rate, he didn’t get a chance to spot me. Mostly I stayed in and slept.” Erik hesitated. “And ordered Chinese food. I’m starting to like it.”

Charles didn’t respond to this allusion; he hesitated only briefly before saying, “All right. I pulled a lot of paperwork while you were out – but we need to sort through it.”

No distractions. Only the hunt. “Let’s go.”

On television, or in films, police work was usually portrayed as something glamorous and thrilling. Whenever Erik saw these portrayals, he remembered days similar to the one he and Charles spent then – going through each and every voyeurism arrest in Manhattan for the past four years. They sat in a small gray room with poor heating and a window that showed the flat, dingy roof of the building next door and occasionally clicked from the season’s first sleet. Charles took the far opposite end of the conference table, and between them they built a wall of file folders heaped high with scribbled forms and citations from low-level arrests, collected from precincts across the city.

“I took the arrest files from all over, because we know our killer will travel to stalk a victim.” Charles kept staring down at his notepad as he spoke. “But prioritize suspects with residences above 125th.”

“Without apartment numbers,” Erik said. He understood what they were looking for. “And multiple arrests?”

Charles hesitated. “There’s no guarantee he’d have been caught more than once – for that matter, no guarantee he’s ever been caught in the first place. But yes, he’s been at it a while. So it’s worth noting the ones who can’t give it up.”

Not all of the reports were typed; some were scrawled by the arresting officer on a notepad. Before long, Erik’s eyes ached from the strain of trying to make out names and addresses.  But he kept on, resolutely ignoring his own discomfort – or the fact that Charles was so close to him, silent, shut apart.

Some were easy enough to disregard: plenty of kids, younger teenaged boys, more curious or mischievous than predatory. A few dirty old men who no doubt lacked the strength to do the heavy physical work their killer took upon himself. Also, given the physical descriptions Armando and Charles had given, they could eliminate all suspects who were not Caucasian. This still left thousands. The only qualifier that let them eliminate large numbers of suspects was the geographical zone, particularly the lack of an apartment number. That was sobering.

“They say someday all the records will be kept on machines. Computers,” Erik said as he looked at the yellow legal pad with his list of potentials so far: _Harry Kowalski, Roy Dinmont, David Drake, Peter Abernathy, Alvin Festinger_. “We’d be able to cross-reference all of this by typing it in. It would be done in a few minutes’ time.” 

“Would that the day had come.” Charles sighed heavily and leaned forward, his fingers at his temple. Sometimes, Erik knew, he did this as a way of focusing his telepathy; now, however, it was obviously a sign of exhaustion and strain. Briefly he wished he could smooth his hand over Charles’ forehead, brush back his hair and ease the ache –

“Please don’t.” Although Charles never so much as glanced at Erik, his voice was uneven, and his hand paused over his notepad, pencil in hand, as if frozen in place.

“I’m sorry.”

“You ought to at least be left your daydreams. You allow yourself so little, it seems like you should get to keep that, shouldn’t you?” Wind sent another prickling rush of sleet against the gray window; the muted light made Charles’ face seem even more pale. “But when you think about – about touching me, comforting me – Erik, to me it’s real. It’s real for that one split second, and then it’s gone, and I – never mind what I feel. You have to discipline your thoughts better than that. I know you can. You’re one of the only people who ever could.”

Erik couldn’t answer, not with the choking feeling in his throat, but he nodded. His hand closed around his Styrofoam cup, and he forced down a swallow of coffee. It ached, and the coffee was cold.

They ate their lunches out of paper bags silently, and after that they spoke only to list suspects that sounded more promising than others. By midafternoon, they had approximately twenty names put together and had gone through the largest bulk of the files. 

“We have two options,” Erik said. “Work through the rest and follow up tomorrow, or follow up on these now and go through the rest tomorrow.”

“Might as well keep going. It won’t be any easier to look at this paperwork in the morning. Better to go out with a full list, anyway. The wider the net we cast, the better chance we have to find him.”

Erik felt disappointed; he’d hoped to provide Charles with some small comfort, even if that were only a break in routine. But then he stilled as he realized Charles had caught that thought, too. Surely he’d earned another lecture about disciplining himself, not attempting to care for Charles in any way.

But Charles said, in a quiet voice, “You’re certain you’re safe tonight?”

“There’s no reason to think he’d be able to find me.”

Then Charles jerked to his feet so abruptly he knocked his chair back on the floor. “Stupid, stupid – how could I have been so stupid? I didn’t even see it before. Dammit! It’s been there in front of my face all along.”

“See what?”

“He finds us. He always finds us. We thought it had to be through some network of mutants, but there’s no chance someone this … damaged, this abnormal, would work his way into an underground society without drawing a lot of attention. You would have heard of him, or Armando would have. So he’s not linked in, but he finds us just the same.” Charles’ smile could be as savage as Erik’s own, given the right combination of excitement and anger. “Do you understand now, Erik? If the killer is a mutant, as I’m almost certain he is, _that’s_ his mutation. He can find us. He can sense the presence of other mutants.”

It made a terrible kind of sense. But wasn’t it too convenient, a conclusion drawn to fit the facts rather than derived from them?

“A valid objection,” Charles said as he paced alongside the table, his wild energy barely tamed by the movement. “But I haven’t been able to come up with any other valid explanation for how he finds us. Given the incredible social and economic disparity between the victims, it makes sense that he’s not using a network of friends and allies. He’s never been a part of such a thing in his life, and the victims wouldn’t belong to the same ones. Therefore he finds them in another way. And a mutation is the most rational explanation.”

“You mean – even if a mutant has hidden his mutation, even if he’s not using his powers in any public way, our killer would know.”

Charles nodded and slammed one hand against a nearby file cabinet. “The single most useful mutation he could have! At least for our purposes – my God, he’s like a human Cerebro, but maybe even more accurate than we’ve gotten Cerebro to be so far.”

“Cerebro?”

“Long story. I’ll explain later.” Charles’ expression was so deeply aggrieved it would have been comic in any other situation. “We finally discover a mutant capable of bringing our kind together, and he’s a sociopath. Just our luck.”

Erik remained unconvinced that their killer was a mutant – to him this still felt more like a crime of hatred and prejudice. But he had begun to trust Charles’ strange insights, at least when it came to criminal behavior. “Then – the voyeurism – is that a false lead?”

“No. He’ll like to watch, regardless. But I have to start over with my profile now, question every assumption I’ve made so far. The immense psychological impact of knowing, always knowing, that a fraction of humanity is fundamentally different in the way that you are, but that they never admit it – that’s going to be huge for him. Almost dominant.”

Erik understood how that felt. Maybe he could use that understanding to be a better hunter. “Does this get us closer?”  

“Every insight helps.” Charles’ thoughts seemed far away for a moment, but then he looked up at Erik and repeated, “You’re absolutely sure your apartment is secure? He’d only have to walk along your street when you were home, perhaps. That might be enough to tell him where you live.”

“It’s secure. The windows were painted shut decades ago. And I never leave without soldering the locks.”

Charles paused. “What?”

“My power. I fuse the locks on the door so that they’re essentially solid metal. Nobody can get in, no matter what they use. Not without chopping through the door itself. Which I think I’d notice.”

“You lock the whole world out.” His eyes were sad. “Of course you do.”

Then Charles sat down again and turned his gaze to the paperwork, away from Erik.  So much anger, so much loss, the swirling darkness of the inevitable dragging them both down – all that boiled in the room between them, where they sat in the cold, making notes, not meeting each other’s eyes.


	19. Chapter 19

He sat on the fire escape, looking into the apartment. Nobody ever paid any attention to him in the alleyways, not when he wore his uniform. So he could stay here as long as he liked. It wasn’t like Louie would notice.

The name on the buzzer said LEHNSHERR, E. Not much to go on. But he’d never needed much.

Cold wind blew a rush of sleet onto his head, and he frowned, glancing up at the pigeon-starred sky. Earlier he had tried the windows in hopes of waiting there for Lehnsherr to come home; now he pried at them again just because it would be better to be inside. No luck. They were painted shut, and repainted, layers of paint so thick the metal windowsill had a kind of softness that gave under his fingernails.

Of course he could simply break the window. But then there was a good chance he’d cut himself. It was funny how different blood looked when it was your own. Other times he liked looking at it, thought the liquid red shine was the prettiest thing in the world. But his own blood, his own broken skin – that just made him think of Mom and the switch, and then he got so angry his jaw hurt and his head throbbed and he couldn’t concentrate on anything else for a long time.

So he perched on the fire escape like one of the birds, shivering, and looking inside.

There wasn’t much. This guy wasn’t rich, or maybe he just blew all his cash on books. One whole wall was lined with books, floor to ceiling, and there were still more of them piled in little stacks or on chairs. Other than that, the apartment was sparse. No posters or paintings on the walls, no curtains, the bed plain, beaten-up wood that looked as though it had come with the apartment for at least the past twenty years.

Nothing like home, where everything was heaped high – all the pretty things he’d found and hidden from Mom, or brought back after she died. Lehnsherr had only books, and they weren’t pretty. Just dusty and still. Weird.

If he couldn’t come through the window, he’d have to do the door. Early one morning, probably, when Lehnsherr would be asleep and off his guard. He would have to call in sick that day; he’d had to rush the cat-girl, which was more unsatisfying to him as time went on. Not this one. He wouldn’t rush this one.

He’d come just before dawn. Break the door lock if he had to, but probably someone would have an early shift at work.  Then he’d knock on the door, polite as anything, and say that there was a water leak in the apartment below and he needed to check the pipes.

Lehnsherr would open the door, even if it was just to get a look at him.

Only a few seconds’ opportunity – but it would be enough. 

Then he could pull Lehnsherr to the bed. (He remembered the weight of him, the sweet inert drag of Lehnsherr’s stunned body in his hand.) Arrange everything just right. And he could take all day if he wanted.

This time he wouldn’t just look. This time he’d touch, and while Lehnsherr was still alive, too. This time he was really going to do it. The whole thing. Not just take the mutation and run away later. He’d do it all at last.

The sleet began coming down harder and steadier – less a scattering, more a hard driving mess. He frowned as he turned up the collar of his coat, then began working his way down the fire escape ladders. The metal rungs would ice over soon. Besides, even Louie would notice if he didn’t clock out on time again.

Before he left, though, he hesitated – and swept out once with what he thought of as his radar. When another one of _them_ was near, he felt/saw/knew it … a small bright awareness not unlike the blips on a radar screen, at least the way radar looked in the movies. He could zoom in on that awareness and walk right up to it, every time.

Not now, though. Now the world was empty and cold. Time to go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might run a wee tad longer than the originally projected 26 chapters, but not by much. Just an FYI!


	20. Chapter 20

The distance between the precinct and Erik’s apartment had never seemed so long. In part it was the relentless sleet, which found the crevices and folds in Erik’s scarf where it could melt and trickle onto his neck, and had turned the sidewalks to gray, frigid slush. Everyone in the crowds looked down, kept their hands in their pockets. Horns blared from taxis caught in the slow crawl of traffic.

It was late, nearly 9.  He and Charles had worked at opposite ends of the long conference table almost without speaking. When he was not engrossed in sorting through Peeping Tom arrests, Erik had forced himself to think of – things he disliked about his apartment, the possibility of getting a partner besides Mahoney, better delis he might order dinner from in the future, in short anything and everything that wasn’t Charles.

If Charles appreciated the effort, he gave no sign. They’d parted quietly back at the station.

The first thing Erik did upon returning to his apartment was take the longest, hottest shower his building’s uncertain plumbing would allow.

The very next thing he did – with wet hair, still swaddled in his robe and smelling of Ivory soap – was go over what he called the Books.

_They’ll come for us in the end._

Erik knew that. He didn’t doubt it in the slightest. That was why he’d spent his time with the NYPD assembling the Books. They were easily hidden in plain sight, just a few particular volumes among the hundreds he owned. The code they were written in wasn’t complex – a cryptographer could no doubt break it in a weekend – but it was sufficient to cover his tracks for a few days in a worst-case scenario. If he and his sources hadn’t made their way underground by then, they’d probably be imprisoned or dead already.  In the meantime, he needed to be able to read it easily.

He’d understood since the strange, amoral environment just after the war that the world was made up of bright places and dark places. In bright places, rule of law held, criminal behavior was rarely worth the risk and attempts to deviate from the norm would draw unwanted attention. In dark places, law and order was a thin shell under which the real world roiled. Any deal could be done if you just knew who to ask. The only real authority was power – might made right.

New York City was, as it had always been, as dark a place as could be found anywhere in the world.

To Erik, by now, the codes were as instantly comprehensible to him as any of the languages he spoke fluently. These passages were about brothels, gay bars and sex clubs – places that paid well to stay off the police radar. They didn’t always pay in cash, although Erik liked to swell the secret accounts when possible; the money wasn’t for him, after all – it was for _them_. Yet the other forms of payment were often more useful. Places like that collected secrets … secrets about the richest and most powerful, the secrets that could be used to bring them under control when the moment came.

This code was for the sex club Angel had worked in. It had never occurred to him to ask her if that was where she wanted to be, what she wanted to be doing. Not every girl in the club hated her lot – this was another illusion he’d been disabused of – but few of them wanted to stay forever, or even for very long. Angel apparently had never wanted to be there at all. He’d never thought she had a chance at something more stable, any more than he expected his own lot to improve.

Angel now lived in the mansion with others of her own kind, making friends, preparing for the future with hope.

_It’s folly to expect the world to welcome mutants. They’ll do to us what they’ve done to Jews, and to homosexuals, and to everyone else who can be kept apart._

And yet Angel was with other mutants. Soon Armando would be with them too. What better protection could there be than solidarity?

Erik had always believed as much, but he’d also believed in lying low. The money he’d put aside was well hidden in accounts all over the world; the Nazis he’d hunted down had taught him which nations and which banks would keep dirty secrets. In various warehouses in the city and some surrounding counties, he had weapons stashes, mostly confiscated guns from various busts, but he’d made several buys from dealers at bargain prices; not reporting them always earned him a discount.

What did it matter where that cash went, or if these criminals walked free? What did it matter how humanity slaughtered each other grubbing over money or turf? They were only footsoldiers in a future war, cannon fodder for the other side.

Only now did Erik see he’d spent so much time focusing on the enemy that he’d never really looked at those who stood beside him.

He had connections with mutants throughout the city – perhaps a dozen in all – with powers from the miraculous to the mundane.  Why had he never drawn them together? Until Erik had visited Charles’ mansion, the idea of banding together had never occurred to him … no, that wasn’t quite right. He’d always thought mutants would fight together against humans someday. What he hadn’t envisioned was the idea of a community. Of friendship. Trust. Affection.

Erik had never wondered what it would be like to be bound together by what you shared, not what you hated.

And what Charles had offered him went so far beyond that.

The group gathering at the mansion was looking toward a different kind of future – a future he could still barely imagine.

A future that wouldn’t include him.

At last, around midnight, Erik went to bed. The same thoughts ran over and over, carving a jagged rut through his mind – Charles, the case, Charles, mutants, Charles and always Charles – but he hoped exhaustion would force him to sleep.

He shut out the lights. For the first moment, Erik saw only darkness. Then his eyes adjusted to the pale illumination that filtered through the windows – distant streetlamps, the still-golden windows of the neighbors across the alley, strangers he knew only as shadows. He lay down, accepting the first shock of ice-cold sheets. His sputtering, resentful radiator provided little heat during the night; his own body would have to warm the bed.

Erik closed his eyes and breathed in, slow and deep. He went through the small rituals that ended every night: Remembering soldering the locks again once he was inside, listening to make sure there were no unusual sounds other than the creaks and groans of an elderly building. Reassured, he allowed himself a simple comfort, one familiar to him from childhood – he reached out to the metal around him, tracing its shape.

Pipes in the kitchen and bathroom.

His service revolver, nestled in its holster.

Locks on the windows.

The fire escape –

Erik’s eyes opened. Slowly he sat up, focusing all his energy on the fire escape just outside his window.

The lower ladder of the fire escape usually remained up, out of the way of anyone who might be in the alley, waiting to be shaken down in case of an actual fire. Now it was down.

Someone had been on the fire escape today, the one directly outside his window.

It didn’t necessarily mean anything, of course. Kids might tug it down to clamber around until their parents stopped them –

_Today? In this weather? Children weren’t playing outside today._

The wind might have shaken it down. A repairman might have needed to do some exterior work. There were any number of explanations besides the one that swelled larger and heavier inside Erik’s mind, blotting out everything else.

He turned on a lamp, rose from the bed and crossed the room to his holster. The butt of his gun felt heavy and solid in his hand.

Erik sat in a chair opposite the window and waited there, gun in hand.

He waited all night.

 

**

 

“You look exhausted,” Charles said the next morning as they set out from the precinct. He didn’t make eye contact at first – but then he stopped in place on the sidewalk and stared up at Erik. “My God. He found your apartment?”

“I don’t know that,” Erik replied quickly.

Charles’ alarm only heightened. “Someone was out there. You know that much. And you – you just sat there? You _waited_ for him?”

“With my firearm.”

“Alone.” His face was pale, but his blue eyes burned. “You didn’t call for help.”

“Would you rather I’d gone out into the street?”

“No, I’d rather you had called for help.”

They were arguing now, their voices raised, out in the sidewalk; a couple of the beat cops were within earshot. Even though there was nothing incriminating about what they were saying, Erik knew that any observer would be able to tell this argument was emotional. Personal.

He shot back, “I had nothing to phone in. Do you think my precinct is going to send out a car because the ladder of my fire escape fell?”

“You might have called me,” Charles said. Then he closed his eyes. “Tonight you stay at the mansion.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“Tonight, the mansion. No arguments. If it’s a bad idea for us to – well, then, I’ll stay in the city.” Breathing out, Charles seemed to regain some measure of calm; his smile was tight. “I’ll take a room at the Waldorf-Astoria. See the sacrifices I make for you?”

“I’m not putting you out of your home.”

“No. What you’re not doing is making me spend tonight thinking that you’re alone and in danger. Don’t do that to me, Erik. Not that.”

“You’re bullying me.”

“To protect you. Yes.” Charles turned up the collar of his coat against the wind. “You have no idea what I’d do.” 


	21. Chapter 21

They began with Peter Abernathy. There was no reason to suspect him any more than any of the others, but he was closest.

“Current address is on 16th Street,” Erik said as they went, on foot – it was too short a distance to bother with a police car or the subway.  Cold winter sunlight drained the color from the city around them. “But he still owns the property on Sherman, the address in the earliest arrests. The house was condemned a year ago, but of course it hasn’t been torn down.”

As though the slow-moving bureaucracy of New York City would ever move so quickly. “A condemned house. Ideal for his purposes.”

“No one to observe. No one to hear. Plus, he’s familiar with that neighborhood. More comfortable there than here.”

Charles nodded. Erik’s cool, focused mind remained wholly on the case, for which he was grateful. He had no such discipline.

The fact – the likelihood that the killer had found Erik’s apartment and searched for him there – it turned Charles’ blood to ice. He’d been afraid of this before, but in the abstract, as one of many dangers they might face. Now it was real.

He thought of the skinned body of Reginald King lying dead, limbs akimbo, in a tangle of wet dead leaves. The inner workings laid bare, the helplessness, the utterly pitiful exposure of it all: Charles had found this hard enough to behold the first time. Now his mind kept putting Erik in that place, a vision that sickened him.

As they came up the steps of Peter Abernathy’s apartment building, Charles forced himself to concentrate. The best way to protect Erik was to catch the killer.

“Get your weapon ready,” Charles said.

Erik gave him a sidelong look. “We don’t know that this is the man. And he won’t be expecting us.”

“If it is the man, and he has the powers I suspect he does, he may already know we’re here. And he’s overpowered victims quickly before.”

“Don’t remind me.” But Erik put his hand on his holster, ready to pull in an instant.

Nobody responded to the bell, so they rang the super, who emerged sleepily, scratching his head. “Shit. Can’t you fuckin’ missionaries take a hint? How many of you guys have I gotta tell to get lost?”

“We’re not missionaries.” Charles flashed his FBI badge, which at least had the effect of making the super straighten and hastily tuck in his undershirt. “We’re looking for a tenant here. Peter Abernathy.”

“That freak? You won’t find him here.”

Erik and Charles exchanged looks. Erik said, “Why not?”

“He’s in the funny farm. His older sister, she got sick of having to spring him from jail all the time. He liked to look at girls – but you know that, huh? Being the cops and all. Anyway, she had him declared … something. Whatever it is you have somebody declared to get ‘em locked up. He’s been upstate for the past three months. She pays his rent, though, so I don’t care.”

“Three months.” That meant he probably wasn’t their man, but they’d have to make sure. With a sigh, Charles took out his note pad. “Can you remember the name of the institution?”

He couldn’t. However, they got the name of the sister, and used the super’s office to call her – then the hospital – when they finally determined that Peter Abernathy was indeed unable to check out of his own free will and had remained in the hospital for the entire three months, save two lunches with his sister.

“So much for our morning,” Charles said.

“We eliminated someone. It’s progress.” Erik’s mood was darker than his resolutely upbeat words. Although he was true to his words, no longer daydreaming about Charles, his thoughts were erratic from exhaustion and the need to think about something, anything else than the man beside him. Charles nearly snapped at him to stop working so damn hard – but then he caught a stray image that stopped him in his tracks.

Erik had glanced west. Toward a street he’d been down before. It led to –

\--the bathhouse, the place he’d gone after the night they met. The place where he’d fucked a stranger and pretended it was Charles.

It was a stray thought, without much emotion behind it – at least until Erik realized that Charles had stopped. When he looked down at Charles’ face, the shame that overwhelmed him suffused Charles as well, locking them both together in a moment they should never have known, much less shared.

“Let’s go,” Charles said.

Erik could only stare at him.

“Come on. Let’s go, you and I.” They were right there on the street, but no one was close enough to hear. “You can fuck someone else and pretend it’s me. I’ll let someone else fuck me and pretend it’s you. That’s as near as we’d ever get, isn’t it?”

“Don’t,” Erik said. God, how he hated the thought of another man’s hands on Charles’ body. It only made Charles angrier.

“Or maybe I’ll go without you. Let them use me any way they want. Would that work? Would I be dirty enough for you to touch then?”

“Stop.” Erik half-turned his head, refusing to meet Charles’ eyes. “What are you doing?”

Charles breathed out, trying to regain control. “Being a jerk.”

“You can’t – I’m trying my best not to think about – but when you bring it up – ”

“I know. I know.” The shame Charles felt now wasn’t Erik’s; it was his own, richly earned. “Obviously this isn’t working. We should split up.”

Erik didn’t like that, Charles could tell. He could also tell that Erik saw the need for it as surely as he did. “But – we can’t go out alone. Not if the killer can do what you think he can.”

“No. You go out with Mahoney. I’ll pull in someone from the Bureau. We’ll split up the remaining high-priority people – go after them. It’s faster, too. We should have done this long ago.”

For a moment they only stood there. The one connection they still had – as partners in this hunt – was breaking, but it had to break. For the sake of every mutant in danger, most particularly Erik, they couldn’t let themselves fall prey to countless emotional distractions.

Not they. He. Erik’s mind had sometimes wandered, but Charles knew his weakness alone was to blame.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“It makes sense.” Erik was going to be calm about this. Good.

“And I meant what I said about the mansion. I’ll get Moira to bring my things into the city tonight.” He was going to owe Moira about six dozen roses and dinner at 21 before this was done.

Erik just nodded and started walking again, beginning down the long road that parted them from each other.

 

**

 

“Which one first – Dinmont or Drake?” said Abbott, who was young and without much field experience, but who had been available on short notice.

They were equal distances from each of their homes, so Charles shrugged. “Doesn’t matter – ”

Then he stopped. On the block catty-corner from the 1 train station was Peter Abernathy’s old house, clearly at the point of collapse. Boards had been hammered over the windows, but not the door.

That, or the boards over the door had been pulled away.

Abernathy wasn’t their man, but if the killer lived in this neighborhood, he would have seen this house. He might have seen the advantages for himself. And the door – the door was painted a deep, dark red. Despite the age of the paint and its chipped condition, there was still a shine to it.

“I want to check that place out,” he said.

Abbott frowned. “Most likely a bunch of dope fiends in there.”

“Most likely.” But Charles strode forward, willing to follow the hunch.

The boards of the porch creaked beneath their feet as they drew their weapons. Abbott kicked the door in; a few motes of dust fell from the ceiling. But no spiderwebs stretched across any of the doorways, the way they clouded the corners.

Charles breathed in, then had to fight the urge to cough. Must and mold were thick in the air. Thin triangles of light sliced in through the boards on the windows, illuminating peeling wallpaper, a few pieces of dusty furniture, an oval framed portrait of a little girl from perhaps the turn of the century. She held out the hem of her tulle dress, pointing her slipper-clad foot.

“FBI,” Abbott called, though neither of them had heard anything.  They stood there for a few moments, but nothing moved, save a small scurrying thing in one corner that Charles preferred not to investigate too closely.

“Sweep right,” Charles said. “I’ll go left.”

“Don’t think anybody’s here.”

“I don’t either. But if the man we’re after has been here before, he might have left evidence.” Like Katy’s fur, or Reginald’s skin.

Charles went through the hallway, which was empty, and the dining room, which was much the same. By the time he opened the kitchen door, he expected little – but the putrid smell hit him like a slap. 

The sink was coated over with blood – dried blood, but not long dried. More coated the yellow linoleum on the floor, in great pools. A scum of mold grew at the edges. And there was so much of it, more than anyone could shed and live. Slowly Charles looked up to see the makeshift hook from the ceiling.

This was where Reginald King had been skinned. Probably, this was where he had died.

“Abbott!” he called. “Get in here!”

Charles stepped in farther as Abbott ran toward him, footsteps approaching. No weapons – nothing to fingerprint, dammit, but surely there was something around that sink.

The door swung open again, and Charles turned to face Abbott.

It wasn’t Abbott.

He didn’t even have the chance to level his gun. The pale man didn’t strike him; he hardly moved, only exhaled, a sharp spitting motion like the hiss of a feral cat. Charles had no strength, no balance, no legs on which to stand, just a heavy useless body that flopped to the floor, taking his bewildered mind with it. The thick scum of blood was sticky against his cheek.

 _Freeze!_ Charles commanded, not with his voice – he couldn’t speak – but with his mind.

And it did nothing. Whatever had paralyzed his body had also paralyzed his power.

 _A secondary mutation_ , Charles realized. _I understood nothing. Absolutely nothing._

The killer looked down at him, curiously blank. Charles could not turn his head upward, could not even focus his eyes well enough to look at the man who stood above him; he knew only that a pale figure was leaning closer.

“What are you?” the man whispered.

Charles could not answer. It seemed the only movement left to him was the wild, panicked thumping of his heart.

“You’re one of us. But what? I can’t see what’s different about you. But you are. You _are_. And you’re mine.”

The man’s hand reached hesitantly toward Charles, as though he were almost afraid to touch – but no.

The trembling in his white fingers wasn’t fear. It was anticipation. 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the lack of warnings and the tags, guys. 
> 
> **

“What are you?” he demanded.

There was no answer, of course. He hadn’t expected one.

Maybe it would be clearer when he got all the clothes off. So far he’d only gotten rid of the coat. No strange limbs, no horns or wings, no funny skin, nothing like that … but he was Different too. That was absolutely certain. Those feelings of his never lied.  But then what was it that was abnormal?

And how much time would he have to find out?

He ought to have killed the other one, the normal one. It hadn’t even occurred to him to do that; killing a regular person had never held much interest. What was the point of it? This time, though, there had been a point, one he’d only seen too late, after he was staggering through the alley with his catch in his arms like so much dead weight.  Only then had he realized the other one would wake up sooner or later, and when he did he would tell others what had happened to –

\--the wallet laid out on the hall table revealed both a driver’s license and FBI identification naming the new one as Charles Francis Xavier.

It wasn’t good, knowing his first name. He’d always managed to avoid learning that before. Looking down at the man crumpled on the floor and thinking, _Charles_ – it knotted up his stomach.

So he wouldn’t think about it.

There was lots more to worry about, too. FBI. The FBI! Why would they be in the empty house? He’d tried to convince himself that there could be other reasons. Maybe someone else had found the empty house. Maybe a … a bank robber. The FBI went after bank robbers, didn’t they? A bank robber could have stashed the loot there. He’d seen things like that on TV.

But the more he looked down at Charl – at the man lying at his feet, the more he thought he’d seen him before.

He was the one who had shouted after him, that day near Riverside Park, when he’d so nearly caught the other one, Lehnsherr. How often had he told himself since then that he hadn’t heard anyone yelling “FBI,” that he’d been so panicked and confused and upset over the loss of a good find that he’d just imagined it?

No. He had heard it then. The FBI was looking for him, and they had found him.

 _They just found the empty house_ , he told himself. And that had to be an accident, because nobody had any reason to expect him there. So he was still hidden, for now.

But how much longer did he have?

When he thought like that, the stomach cramps started, the ones he hadn’t felt in years … not since Mom had died. He’d thought they were gone for good then.  Wrapping the dry cleaning bags around her head, then the duct tape, all that duct tape, so much she couldn’t tear it away – though she’d tried with her thin, feeble hands, nails still shiny red from the manicure he’d given her the day before – oh, he’d thought it was over forever, then. Everything had felt wonderful then.

That was how he thought of what he did to the others. When he breathed on them, it was just like wrapping them in duct tape and plastic.

The bigger problems he had drifted into the far corners with the rest of the rubbish. His focus zeroed in on the man who lay on the floor. His number one problem. His number one priority. Number one comfort.

Probably the man could see him. His eyes were unfocused, gazing in the general direction of the corner. They couldn’t really choose what to look at, not after he took control. They couldn’t do anything, no matter how badly they wanted to. It wasn’t like their bodies shut down, though. They kept breathing, and nobody had ever made a mess in his pants, and they blinked – but slowly, so slowly, eyes opening and closing like a cat about to take a nap in the sun.

And they still felt touch. Still felt pain.

It wasn’t like they could scream or anything, but it was just – subtle. The smell of their sweat changed as he worked. Their breathing became a little more shallow. The look in their eyes, even though it was glazed over … oh, you knew they felt every second.

This one, Xavier, had held a gun. And he’d still beaten him! Still he was more powerful. They might be looking for him, but they only found him by mistake. If they’d known anything about this house, they would have come here to start with. No, he was still safe for the moment. The rest he could worry about later. Right now he was free to think only about his latest prize. 

That meant he could finally live it out, the whole dream, all of it. He was ready at last.

The front of his coverall was tented out, and his hands had begun to sweat. He wanted to enjoy this. He deserved to enjoy it. He thought he knew how to make it last, this time.

The excitement was too much. He’d have to slow himself down first, if this was going to work right. That was his big problem, getting excited too fast.

He knelt beside the man on the floor, right where he couldn’t help but look directly at him.

“Watch me,” he said, as if the man had any choice. But it felt good to say it out loud. That made it like giving an order.

He unzipped his coverall down the front, and he took it out. At first he was going to do it like he did when he was alone, but then a better idea came to him.

So he said, “Let’s hold hands.”

Then he lifted the man’s unresisting hand and wrapped it around his thing, clenching his fist around both. That was so good—so good, why hadn’t he done this before? This was how he was going to start from now on, every time, every single time. His hips jerked up spasmodically as he kept the man’s hand around him, and through his half-open eyes he stared at the blank face looking up at his.

He could do the rest now. For so long he’d thought he could never do any of it, but it was just like jumping off the diving board. One leap and you were over, going too fast to stop.

“Next time I’m going to do it in you,” he wheezed. It was hard to talk by now, but he wanted to tell him just what to expect, so he’d be even more afraid. “And the time after that. As many times as I want. You’re going to die with me inside you.”

Yes, he heard. He understood. He felt it all; you could tell just looking at him. Something in the eyes. 


	23. Chapter 23

“You gone deaf or something?” Mahoney said. “Third time. Last time. _Agent Xavier’s missing._ They think the killer snatched him. So much for all that psychologist shit, huh? Didn’t help Xavier any.”

The only reason Erik didn’t smash his fist through Mahoney’s teeth was the severity of the shock. His hatred for Mahoney, white-hot though it was, could not rise above his terror at knowing Charles was in the killer’s grasp.

Almost blind to his surroundings, Erik turned from the protesting Mahoney and ran down the hall of the precinct, to the room being used as the makeshift headquarters for their investigation. He’d never seen any of the men who were inside, but the suits, the ties, the haircuts – everything proclaimed them as FBI. They were stamped from the same press. How had he ever thought Charles could be like them?  

“Agent Xavier’s in trouble?” he said.

“Detective Lehnsherr. You were with Xavier this morning when Peter Abernathy was falsely eliminated as a suspect?”

“What do you mean, falsely?”

“The suspect attacked Agents Xavier and Abbott in an abandoned house belonging to Abernathy.”

Erik remembered the address. “Two other suspects live in that area, and Abernathy’s been in an institution for months.”  

“If the person institutionalized is really Peter Abernathy,” another agent said. His tone suggested that there was an effort to find someone to blame for this; some dipshit cop from the NYPD, someone outside the Bureau whose flaws were obviously not the FBI’s fault, would be ideal. “You may have been lied to. Fooled. Or he may have accomplices.”

“It’s not him. You can’t waste time chasing Abernathy, when Charles is out there – “

His voice trailed off as he realized how many mistakes he’d just made. They wouldn’t notice him calling Charles by name, rather than Agent Xavier – not compared to the fact that he’d just accused them of wasting time, exciting their hostility. And given that they already wanted to blame him, anything he said was automatically discredited. Erik had just made it even more certain that the FBI was going to focus all their efforts on the one man in New York State least likely to be holding Charles captive.

“Obviously our first priority is the fact that we have one agent missing and another in the hospital with a concussion,” the FBI man said piously. “But we’ll be waiting for a thorough report on your investigative process leading up to this event—”

“Keep waiting,” Erik said, and he slammed the door behind him.

Heart racing, self-loathing and fear swirling his mind, Erik strode through the precinct office with its clattering typewriters and thick haze of cigarette smoke.  Mahoney would no doubt be looking for him; so would the captain. Erik didn’t give a damn. He’d quit tomorrow, unless Charles was dead. If Charles was dead, Erik wanted to be dead too.

But for now – he had his own lists of the suspects. His own records of the addresses. He was Charles’ last chance.

Behind the terrible calculus at work in his thoughts, the harsh predictions of how long Charles might have, drifted the haze of memory, the sweet cloudy recollection of how it had felt to be held in Charles’ arms, the tenderness with which he had been kissed. _For you I think I’d do anything._

From this intoxicating hope Erik had walked away, in the belief he was sparing Charles. Saving him, granting him a normal life. Instead he had only hurt Charles, over and over, parted from him bitterly, and delivered him into the hands of a murderer.

 _Forgive me_ , he thought – no, prayed. Then he hated himself for it. Already he was thinking of Charles among the dead, with God. This was no time for surrender. It was time to fight.

Just as Erik burst through the precinct doors out onto the street, he nearly ran into someone – Moira McTaggart. She might have come in from a day of shopping in Fifth Avenue boutiques, in a chic blue coat and hat and an expensive leather case in her hand.

Immediately she said, “Erik! I mean, Detective Lehnsherr. I went to the FBI looking for Charles, and they said – oh, my God, is it true?”

“It is.” He understood the suitcase now. She’d been bringing Charles his things so he could spend the night at the Waldorf-Astoria, giving his own home and sanctuary to Erik.

“Are they – the FBI – they’re going after him, right?”

“In the wrong direction,” he said bitterly. “But if I have to find him myself, I will. And I can.”

“Wait.” Stricken as Moira looked, her grip around his forearm was firm. “You can’t go out there alone.”

“I told you, the FBI’s following the wrong leads. Even if the NYPD would mount an independent search, I doubt the FBI would okay it. That leaves only me to look for Charles.”

“He told me the killer can sense other mutants. That means he’ll realize you’re coming. If you don’t have backup – that’s not a rescue. It’s suicide.”

She was wasting his time, Charles’ time, perhaps the last time Charles had left. “I don’t have any other choice!”

Moira cocked her head; the look in her eyes, equally angry as he felt, equally afraid, speared him through. He wasn’t the only one who cared about Charles. “If only you knew a former CIA agent who’s field-rated on more than a dozen makes of firearms.”

“…. Right. Let’s go.”

 

**

 

Erik’s closest weapons stash was his own apartment. Moira tossed the suitcase onto his bed, and despite her perky blue coat and hat, she instantly became more hard-nosed and efficient than Mahoney had managed on his best day. “Do you have another service revolver?”

“Not here. But try this.”

The Smith & Wesson K-38 model 15-3 fit easily into her hands; she checked the heft of it, pointing it into the corner, and nodded. “Ammo?” Erik replied by opening one of the trunks in his closet, filled with boxes of bullets. Her eyes widened. “Damn.”

He tossed her a box of .38 slugs, got to work loading his own weapon. “My car is in a garage a few blocks from here. If we see a taxi before we get there, we grab it instead. Straight shot up the West Side Highway, we can be there in 25-30 minutes.”

“Be where? Do you know exactly where we’re going?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know the suspects. Not which one of them has Charles. And we have to figure out who to figure out where.”

Erik stilled, trying to marshal his thoughts. It wasn’t enough to charge up there; he had to follow in Charles’ footprints mentally as well as literally. To find Charles, Erik had to think a little like Charles … and arrive at the deductions that would take him to the killer.

There was no time to methodically eliminate the suspects one by one. His first guess had to be right, or else.

He turned to Moira. “Two suspects currently live in the general area where Charles was taken: Roy Dinmont and David Drake. It makes sense to start with one of them.”

“All right.” Her gaze had turned inward, but was no less intense for that. “What do they have in common?”

“They each inherited homes from their parents. Old places. But they don’t have that much money in their own right, so Drake’s a plumber and Dinmont’s a trash man. Either would explain the coveralls the suspect has been seen in. They both have multiple voyeurism arrests.”

“The only difference you’ve mentioned is their jobs. Is there anything else? Any other way we can distinguish between them?”

“Not from the information we have.” The mug shots had showed pale men too shapeless and blank to earn a description as vivid as “ugly.” Though Erik had stood within a foot of this man, he had in his daze been unable to recall an image that would let him point to any of the pictures and identify, or eliminate, anyone.

Moira bit her lower lip, but the girlish expression instantly shifted back to resolve. “Okay. Their jobs. That’s the only dividing line we have to work with. If there’s nothing meaningful we can pull from that, then it’s a guess.  Fifty-fifty.”

Charles deserved better odds. Erik didn’t know if he could deliver. There was no way to know whether their murderer was more likely to be a plumber or a garbage man, at least not without one of Charles’ mysterious flashes of insight –

\--or was there?

The late afternoon light slanted in through the window that led to the fire escape – where, Erik believed, the killer had lurked not long ago, waiting for him to come home.

“He was here,” Erik told Moira. “He came after me.”

“So Charles said.” Her gaze went to the window, and her eyes widened as she grasped the connection.

But Erik spoke it aloud anyway. “Nobody asks any questions when they see a garbage man in the alley with the trash.”

“Roy Dinmont, then.”

“Dinmont.”

They were pretending at more confidence than they felt, Erik knew. Drake might have been able to make a good excuse for going into the alley; the terrible weather that day meant there would be few if any witnesses to placate. And there were countless other factors that could come into play, factors which he and Moira did not know and could not guess.

He had just rolled the dice, gambling for Charles’ life. 


	24. Chapter 24

 

 _I wanted to understand evil,_ Charles thought. _Now I will._

Sobering as this insight was, he embraced it. At least it allowed him to see this as … as the completion of a journey.

He lay on the floor, still utterly unable to move or to use his power. Only his body’s most basic functions continued. His blind, unknowing heart beat on, unaware its services would soon no longer be required. Although Charles could tell he had more control than he had when he was first paralyzed, so far this only took the form of being able to blink slightly more quickly, and the vaguest psychic shadow that told him the killer hadn’t gone far. 

Obviously the toxin wore off after a while. However, Charles did not allow himself to hope it would do so in time for him to save himself. Hope made him panicky and stupid; this he could not afford. He had to stay alert, stay aware, but brace himself for the worst. There seemed very little chance that he could escape what was to come.

His fingers remained sticky, a disgusting crust underneath his nails. He would have given anything for the chance just to wash his hands.

In part because of his gifts, he had never been one of the men in law enforcement who sniggered at rape; Charles had felt the sorrow of victims old and young, female and male, and understood the profound damage rape caused – the way it corroded what should have been most joyful, turned cold what should have been most intimate.  He’d believed he could imagine how that violation deepened the despair of those who were then killed.

But that knowledge had been no preparation for how he felt as he lay there with his murderer’s prick in his own helpless palm, when he felt semen squirt viscous and hot between his fingers.

The killer had grinned at him then. Charles’ helplessness and degradation was exactly what got him off.

 _You’ll know it all before this is through_ , Charles told himself. _You’ll know what evil is You’ll know what rape is. You’ll know what it’s like to suffer at another man’s hand. He’s the last person you’ll see, the last person who will touch you. You’ll know what it means to die._

Fear swirled and swelled inside him, threatening to blot out his thoughts, his reason, everything but the revulsion of knowing what would happen and that he was powerless to save himself. Charles tried to regain some semblance of strength. He didn’t want to lose it, not now. He wanted to be himself, to possess at least the clarity of his own mind, as long as he could. It was all that remained to him. But his horror was so primal that reason seemed to stand no chance.

Then he thought, _At least Erik is safe._

Gratitude radiated through him, the light amid the darkness of his fear. After this, the killer would have to flee, knowing as he did that the FBI was after him. Were he stupid enough to remain in the vicinity, he would certainly be caught in a day or two. The search would probably begin tonight, when he and Abbott failed to return. (Poor Abbott. Surely he was already dead. Hardly more than a boy.) Either way, the killer would have to abandon his hunt for Erik. Charles would die, but Erik would live on. Maybe – maybe he would even go to the mansion and live among the mutants there. It seemed just possible that he would.

Erik could have a community – a family – and so Charles had reason to hope his future wouldn’t be as bleak as his past.

 _Oh, my friend,_ he thought. _I hope someday you can look back and understand that you were loved._

His death meant that Erik would be safe. Whatever he endured in the next, final hours of his life, he endured instead of Erik, in his place. Charles held onto that; he trusted it to sustain him through to the end.

Somewhat calmed, Charles took another look around the room. His eyes were focusing better – another sign of the faint weakening of the toxin – and he could at last make out the details of his surroundings.

Before, he had only known that it was red. Completely red.

The heavy furniture and curtains that looked to be at least half a century old showed dull maroon beneath the grayish layers of dust. Someone had painted the walls and floors far more recently, and ineptly, in different shades of vivid scarlet and crimson that had perhaps been scavenged from various abandoned, half-empty cans – because everything else in the room had apparently been scavenged too.

Red plastic children’s toys were nailed to the walls. Red bottles and cartons and shaving-cream cans lined the mantelpiece and every shelf within view. And lined up all along the perimeter of the room were shoes, women’s shoes, most of them high heels, many shined until they gleamed, and each and every one brilliant red.

The only thing in this room that wasn’t at least mostly red was Charles himself. Undoubtedly the killer liked that contrast. And – and he would like turning Charles red, seeing his blood. Making him a part of the room. One more possession he could nail to the wall.

Obviously the psychopathology was more intricate than Charles had realized.

 _Scavenging_. Charles pretended he were back in his office at the FBI, chicken salad sandwich on his desk and the Beatles on the radio, staring at the chalkboard where he wrote notes to himself; in his mind, he next jotted down the word _Hoarding._

_The suspect comes from a place of profound deprivation. This deprivation is more likely to be emotional than physical, though a key trigger event will involve some treasured possession being taken from him. However, he compensates for this emotional lack by taking physical objects. Cross-reference voyeurism behavior with shoplifting offenses, particularly during adolescence. The suspect –_

The suspect walked back into the room.

Still he wore the coverall, semen-stained and sweaty as it was by now. Was it possible this man was so divorced from normal human society that he owned no regular clothing? Maybe. More likely he knew he was going to make a mess.

At the very edges of his mind, Charles felt an odd echo of psychic awareness – what his power felt like when it had been numbed almost to incapacity, apparently. He had regained just enough to sense something of his killer, a hint of the most powerful emotion in his mind: excitement. Overheated, sexual, gleeful excitement, devoid of anything like reluctance or pity.

Charles would not only die at this man’s hand, but he would also have to feel his enjoyment in the act the whole time.

Despair crushed him in its black stone grip. All his powers, all his hard work, every happy moment with Raven, every joke he and Moira shared, and Erik’s brief blaze though his life like a meteor – all of it, all of it, would be ground to dust.

“I think it’s time,” the killer said in a childish, sing-song way. “Time to see what your Difference is.”

His stubby fingers found the top button of Charles’ shirt and fumbled it open. Then the next. And the next.

“Time to take it,” he whispered, leaning even closer to Charles, close enough that his ill-focused eyes could finally make out the name embroidered on the coverall’s chest patch.

_Roy._


	25. Chapter 25

Roy Dinmont’s house didn’t seem especially derelict from the outside – the paint job was sloppy but recent enough that the red still looked bright as a barn in a child’s picture book. But the yard was thickly overgrown, clotted with weeds and refuse.

“Are we even sure anybody still lives here?” Moira said, pulling her weapon from her oversized coat pocket as smoothly he did from his holster.

Erik answered by gesturing toward one second-story window, where a bare light bulb burned.  She nodded. They said nothing else; from now on, silence was critical. He put his hand to the rusted metal gate, which was padlocked shut. Instantly the padlock clicked open, and he reached around at the precise moment for it to drop into his waiting fingers. He was able to soften the hinges as they went through, so not even a squeak would betray them.

They hurried along the cracked walk. Erik touched his fingers to the doorknob, eased the lock free and pushed the door open. They were met with no resistance, no sound, only the sight of a very cluttered, very red front hall.

As they stepped inside, Moira sucked a breath in so sharply through her nose that he could tell she’d only barely kept herself from crying out. Within an instant he’d glimpsed it too: Charles’ wallet, lying open on the hall table, FBI badge still gleaming.

The dice had come up sevens. Hope pierced Erik as painfully as any blade. _We’ve found him, we’ve found Charles, please let us be in time!_

Immediately they began sweeping through the house, not side by side but mostly keeping each other in their sight. Front room, no; dining room, no. The kitchen was disgusting, littered with jars that seemed to contain half-dried blood, but still no sign of life.

Erik tried not to imagine opening a door and seeing Charles’ dead body. If he had come too late –

 _Stairs,_ Moira mouthed, and he nodded. They went up quickly, Erik first, and at the top of the stairs he turned right. Behind him he heard Moira going left, no doubt as impatient as he was to search the entire house. Already his mind was racing with thoughts of what he would do if Charles was not here: Search the attic? Was there a basement? A shed in the yard?

But then he pushed open the door and oh, God, Charles –

In that first split second Erik saw only Charles, shirt unbuttoned and chest laid bare, lying pale in that sea of red. Charles and this blur of movement coming toward him –

He felt the hiss rather than heard it, a hot spray of spittle against his face, and then he tumbled onto the floor. Although he could still get his hands under him, sort of, his grip on his gun gave way, and his attempt to tether it to him with his control over metal failed. Erik tried to call out for Moira, but all that came out was a low groan.

“No!” The killer – Roy Dinmont – grabbed him by the collar, forcibly throwing him down on the floor – only perhaps a foot away from Charles. If Erik found it hard to move, Charles apparently found it impossible, because he simply lay there, only his blue eyes betraying his horror. “Why don’t you – how can you – wrapped in plastic, you should be wrapped in plastic!”  

Erik didn’t know what “wrapped in plastic” meant, nor did he care. Obviously Dinmont had another mutation, one capable of paralyzing his victims – but just as obviously, he rarely used it repeatedly, in close succession. He was weakened now, unable to attack at the same strength. The same venom that had frozen Charles had only stupefied Erik; within another minute or two, Erik thought he’d be able to get up or at least shout for Moira.

But did they have even one minute left? And now Dinmont had the gun, was holding it in his shaking hand – if Moira did run in, Dinmont might finish her before she had a chance to fire –

“I can’t keep you both,” Dinmont said, as though he had to choose which puppy to make a pet and which to drown.

Feebly Erik kicked at Dinmont. Then he felt a wave of despair and fear that wasn’t his own. Charles’ power, weakened though it was, reached out for him – through him, Erik thought, desperately attempting to convince the killer to wait, to slow him down –

“Watch what I can do.” With that, Dinmont reached out with his free hand and turned Charles’ head toward Erik, forcing him to see.  

Then the gun was again leveled at Erik’s face. Unfortunately, Dinmont had some idea how to use it. What little strength Erik had he channeled entirely into his power; if he could deflect the bullet, change its trajectory, then maybe there was a chance.

Even as he did, though, he saw another blur in the doorway, Moira.

Moira the human. Moira who had no mutant power, Moira whom Roy Dinmont could not sense, to whom he was utterly oblivious as she raised her weapon even faster than he could fire his –

The gunshot rang in his ears. Erik’s weapon fell harmlessly on his chest as Dinmont brought his hands to his throat, gasping, gagging, choking.

For one second Dinmont looked down at his hands, now shiny and red with arterial blood. His mouth opened in something that looked more like wonder than horror; a long stream of gore tricked over his slack lips. Then he collapsed backward onto the floor at Erik’s feet to die.

Moira ran into the room, sparing Dinmont only the second it took her to be sure he was no more danger. “Erik? Charles? Are you okay?”

Erik managed to shake his head no.  In a shaky whisper he hardly recognized as his own voice, he said, “Mutation.”

She understood instantly. “He’s done something to both of you. I’m calling an ambulance.”

Taking both guns with her, instinctively removing them from the reach of even their dying attacker, Moira dashed into the hallway. As Erik heard the click of a receiver being lifted, the whirr of each number being dialed, he rolled onto his side toward Charles.

Still Charles’ face remained tilted toward his, just as Dinmont had left him. Erik wanted to say that everything would be all right, that he was safe, but finding the breath and strength to talk remained difficult. Instead he slowly pushed one hand toward Charles to touch his arm. If the contact was half as comforting for Charles as it was for Erik, then it would be enough. He trusted that he would see some reflection of his relief in Charles’ gaze, and soon feel the answering touch of Charles’ mind.

He did not. Charles stared blankly ahead, even less focused than before. His breathing seemed … unsteady. 

But only moments ago he had been recovered enough to reach out with his powers toward Roy Dinmont –

The knowledge fell on Erik like boiling oil. He would have screamed if he could.

Charles had reached into Dinmont’s mind, joining them together psychically in a last-ditch effort to save Erik’s life. They remained joined even now, as Dinmont died.

He remembered how dizzy and weak Charles had been when he spoke to Katy’s dying mind at the last crime scene. And that had been at least an hour or two after her demise. Even then, Charles had found it hard to disentangle.

This time, Charles was plummeting over the edge with Dinmont, diving down into death, and Erik did not know how to get him back. 


	26. Chapter 26

It was like going over a waterfall.

Charles felt cold, confused, pulled downward and buffeted on all sides by forces he could not control, and yet in the heart of it there was sight. Knowledge. A life he had not led that was nonetheless all around him.

_Mom and her switch. The way she would make him take his pants off, and how when he got older he would get excited, and she would just curse him and hit him harder, which only made it worse._

_The red shoes. The pretty red shoes, which stood for everything in the world that was beautiful and forbidden. They stood for the women he would never touch – were better than them, because they couldn’t go away or laugh at him. They were the first thing that showed him how keeping one precious, glorious part was so much sweeter than trying and failing to possess the whole._

“What’s wrong?” That sounded like Moira’s voice. “Why is he breathing like that? Is he choking?”

_Mom always said you could tell other evil people, just tell, and that she was cursed with that knowledge the same as him. But hers came from God. God told her who was evil and who wasn’t, who was Different, so that she could shun them. Roy’s came from the devil, because he was always looking for evil. Evil sought evil, always._

_Looking in windows, hoping he would find someone else Different, someone who was_ really _evil so he could prove to himself that Mom was wrong about him. His astonishment the first time the sight of a naked woman made him clutch at his thing and moan. How he learned it didn’t really matter if they were young or pretty or not – really it didn’t even matter if they were women or not. Even with the men, they were naked and they didn’t know Roy was watching, didn’t know Roy was right there doing the bad thing, and they were helping him by being naked for him, even though they wouldn’t have wanted to help. And then that became important, the fact that they wouldn’t have wanted it. That became the most important part of all._

Distant sirens. Moira again: “Charles, hang on. Do you hear me? You have to hang on!” A broad warm hand around his forearm, as though trying to hold him in place, but his body seemed not to matter very much any longer.

_Discovering how easy it was to hiss at stray dogs, or rats from the garbage, and watch them fall helpless and still. How much fun it was to take them apart while they were still breathing. Then trying on Mom one time when she got the switch, but it didn’t do anything to Mom, not anything, because she was Different in the same way, and he told her that and she started in on God and the Devil and hit him and hit him and –_

Charles imagined opening his eyes. Amid the swirling chaos of blood and memory, Roy looked back at him. Roy was afraid, and he clung to Charles – for once in his miserable, misbegotten life, not out of malice. In his terror he had seized onto Charles’ mind only so that he would not die as alone as he had lived.  Yet something in Roy longed for escape from the bleak and torturous world he had known, and so it seemed to Charles in that instant – a place of broken glass and bent metal, crushed hope and useless toil, a place where sorrow always triumphed over joy.

 _You will know death_ , Charles told himself. They were words written in and on despair, black ink on black paper. _You will know what it is to die._

Someone grasped his hands, and he heard a hoarse, shaky whisper: “Charles.”

It was Erik.

“Charles, please. Come back. Come back to me.”

Erik. He had saved Erik – or Erik had saved him, he couldn’t recall which and there didn’t seem to be any difference.

It was not that he chose to live; it was more that he suddenly remembered how.  In his mind’s eye he imagined pushing Roy away, and he felt all the psychic ties between them begin to snap, one by one. Roy’s isolation and terror grew stronger and stronger, like claws raking at Charles, but Charles only struggled harder to be free.

And then Roy was going over the edge, as utterly alone as anyone had ever been, and Charles couldn’t see him anymore, could only see a red room and EMTs leaning over him and Moira in a big blue hat.

 

**

 

The next few hours were a blur. They went to the hospital, he and Erik in the same ambulance. Charles could hear Erik talking, trying to ask whether Charles was all right, but he couldn’t yet answer. He just breathed in through the mask, exhausted beyond any emotion save a dull yet all-encompassing relief.

Then there were doctors, lights being shone in his eyes. Someone asked him his name and to his surprise he could answer. Over the next hour, as his blood pressure and temperature were taken, and he more firmly answered the same few stupid questions about the president and what state this was, he was repeatedly told that he was doing much better. On one level this seemed to be true, but on the other it was all he could to stay awake. Exhaustion weighed on him as heavy as any physical thing, more powerfully than he had ever known before.

“He just needs rest,” Moira said firmly. Charles did not remember when Moira had come into the room but he was glad she was there. “And he’ll rest better out of the hospital.”

“Someone should stay with him at all times.”

“Someone will,” Erik replied. When had he come? Had he ever left? All Charles knew was that Erik was near, and safe, and very little else seemed to matter.

Then his coat was draped around his shoulders as they walked out into the cold, Erik on one side and Moira on the other. They got into a cab that looked like any other until he saw Armando behind the wheel.

“Drink,” Moira commanded, holding a paper cup to his mouth so that he only had to lean forward for the straw. Charles obeyed, only realizing how thirsty he was as the cool water hit his throat.

“And eat.” Erik held out half a bagel, but Moira pushed it back.

“That’s for _you_. You need it as badly as Charles does. And I’ve got a sandwich for him right here.”

“But—”

Erik’s voice was cut off by Armando’s. “Don’t mess with the lady, Lehnsherr. She might not have superpowers, but I’m pretty sure she can take us all down.”

“Armando’s right,” Charles said, but even speaking seemed to take the last of his strength. He leaned his head against the back of the seat and shut his eyes; even though he must have opened them when they took him from the cab, he was aware of very little. They put him in a shower, where he remembered scrubbing at his filthy hand until the skin was almost raw, but this roused him only as long as it took for the water to be shut off.  At long last he was poured into a bed. Instantly and totally he surrendered to sleep, and knew nothing for a long while.

When Charles opened his eyes again, he at first didn’t know where he was. Not home – but somewhere even more luxurious, underneath a silk coverlet and a ceiling gilded with flowers.

Only then did Charles remember – amid everything else he had done that day – the reservation he’d made at the Waldorf-Astoria.

He turned his head to see Erik lying next to him, fully clothed and atop the covers. Surely he too had been asleep, but now his eyes were open, studying Charles.

“What are we doing here?” Charles said. Maybe he had died after all, and this was heaven. He could easily imagine an afterlife that contained Erik, a bed, and the luxury suite at the Waldorf.

“You were too tired for the trip to New Salem. My place – the heat barely works, and you were in no condition to make it up the stairs.” Erik shrugged. “Moira thought of this. She’ll bring your suitcase in the morning.”

Charles knew he’d owed Moira dozens of flowers and a nice evening out even before; now he’d have to up the ante. Get her something really special. Say, perhaps, her own pied-a-terre in Paris. The 7th Arrondissement, with a view of the Seine. Least he could do.

“How are you?” Erik’s eyes swept over Charles, as if afraid there were some wound still needing to be bandaged.

“I feel fine,” Charles said, somewhat astonished that it was true. Now that the soporific after-effects of the toxin had worn off, he sensed no physical injury worse than some bruising, probably from his fall.

“Thank God we got there before he did anything to you.”

Slowly Charles clenched his fist, still feeling where he had scrubbed it so viciously in the shower. “Well. He – ” It humiliated him to say this, though he knew there was no sane reason why it should. At the same time, holding it in felt like keeping it close, and Charles had no intention of doing that. “He was enjoying having power over me. At one point he – he forced me to masturbate him.”

Erik closed his eyes tightly; Charles could sense the sickened fury that swept through him like a brushfire. But he fought for control, thinking of Charles’ reaction before his own. “Oh, God. Charles – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“He would have done worse than that if you hadn’t arrived when you did. I’ll – I’ll get over it.” Right now Charles could hardly imagine a time when he could erase that from his memory, when the mere thought of it didn’t make him shudder. Yet he felt that he intended to give Roy Dinmont no more power over him. “But it was disgusting. Degrading.”

“We should have gotten to you earlier – it should never have happened, we shouldn’t have split up – ”

“Then he might have taken us both out. I couldn’t have borne it knowing you were there too. That last moment – when he was going to make me watch him kill you – ” Charles’ voice shook, and he couldn’t look at Erik any longer. Nothing else Roy had done to him had been worse than that.

As he stared up at the delicate flowers painted on the ceiling, each petal and vine outlined in filigree, Charles struggled for control. He and Erik had tormented one another enough; surely now more than ever before they needed to be kind.

And then Erik’s hand closed tentatively over his.

Charles turned back to him. Erik’s face was pale, his soul wrung out with fear and need and shame. But he held onto Charles’ hand as he said, “Am I too late?”

He couldn’t answer, couldn’t think what to answer. Hope still seemed alien to him, and desire very far away.

“I know this is the worst time to speak.” The words rattled out of Erik, too fast and too grim. “After what you’ve been through. And I’m sorry, Charles, I wouldn’t if I could hold it back, but I can’t. After you were taken all I could think was that I’d driven you away, hurt you over and over, when that was the last thing I really wanted.”

“I hurt you too,” Charles said.

Erik didn’t even hear it. “But we found you, you’re safe and alive and I have to tell you this, now, because I didn’t think I’d ever get another chance. You and I – it’s wrong, it’s not what you should have, but it’s all I have to give you. And if you’re mad enough to want me, still – if it’s not too late, maybe we could … maybe we could.”

Still Erik thought of his desires as wicked, as shameful. Charles’ daydreams of an instant change of heart had been just that, daydreams, the fantasies of a naïve child. The despair that had haunted Charles the past several days welled up again through the cracks Roy Dinmont’s attack had caused, and he saw more sharply than ever before the acid-rain erosion of pain and isolation that had worn Erik rough.

Charles had to ask himself whether he could trust this broken man, this broken world.

More hesitantly, Erik added, “If you need time – after all of this – ”

“Come here,” Charles said, voice trembling. “Come _here_.”

The moment he opened his arms, Erik rushed into them, his heavy body covering Charles’. In that first instant their embrace was too hard, too desperate for pleasure, but then they paused, a breath apart, looking into each other’s eyes for a long moment.

“One thing you should know about me,” Charles whispered. He needed to say this to himself as much as to Erik. “I never give up.”

Erik lowered his mouth to Charles’; their lips brushed almost delicately against each other, soft and searching, until Charles opened his mouth. Just slightly – just enough to capture Erik’s lower lip between his. But then Erik made a small yearning sound in the back of his throat, and the tip of his tongue slid into Charles’ mouth, and the spark became flame.

They clutched at each other – Charles bracing himself against Erik’s broad shoulders, tugging impatiently at the shirt he still wore, as Erik tried to paw away the coverlet between them. Kicking the blanket down, Charles panted, “Take those off.”

Quickly Erik obeyed, struggling out of his shirt and trousers so eagerly it was almost comic.  Charles had been put to bed in only his shorts, which he slid off in an instant. Behind his heartbeat he could feel the lingering cold menace of Roy Dinmont – the sick visions in that man’s mind the ugly negative image of what Charles wanted to give to Erik now – but he refused to surrender to it. Instead he planned to burn it away.

Then Erik stood in front of him, naked, utterly beautiful, and Charles could think of nothing else.

“Come here,” he whispered again, because he had no other words.

They tangled together, kissed, gasped, stroked, breathed in the scent and heat of each other’s skin. Erik had never known tenderness in bed – Charles could feel it in his thoughts, sense it in the moments when he hesitated, unsure of what to do or how to feel. And yet he responded with such wonder. Such warmth. The way he looked at Charles – almost awestruck – made Charles want to laugh with joy, or cry. He couldn’t tell which. It didn’t matter.

When Erik took Charles’ cock in his mouth, Charles didn’t even try to hold back his cries. He gave into the pleasure in an almost animal way, thrusting upward impatiently even as Erik sucked hard. As Erik’s fingers gripped his hipbones, Charles wound his fingers through Erik’s hair. Then the rush kicked in, brain to balls, and his voice wasn’t his own, nor his mind, nor anything else – the shout, the scream, the heat of it all seemed to be Erik’s, as surely as Charles was himself.

Erik swallowed him down, cupped Charles’ balls and twitching cock gently in his broad hand as he pulled back and dusted kisses along Charles’ belly.  As soon as Charles could speak, he whispered, “Inside me. Now.”

They were fortunate that the Waldorf-Astoria provided everything for its guests’ comfort, including lotions. Within moments Erik’s fingers were slick inside him, coaxing him open – tentatively, at first.

“You – ” Charles was still panting and weak in the aftermath of orgasm. “You never did this with anyone you cared about.”

“Never,” Erik whispered.

“Never cared – cared whether it felt good.” He mouthed sloppy kisses against Erik’s neck, shuddered as Erik’s fingers went deeper. “It was just something you had to do – to get what you wanted.”

“You’re all right? This is good?”

“So good. It’s so good, Erik.” Charles nuzzled the curve of Erik’s jaw, brought his knees even closer to his chest. “You’ve never known how good you are.”

Erik’s reply was to brace himself against the bed and slowly push inside.

Charles moved with him, moaned with him, but as utterly satisfying as it felt to be fucked by Erik, what was better was sensing what was happening in Erik’s mind. The sheer ecstasy of it – the unfamiliar, undreamt-of pleasure of having his heart and body united, of wanting the whole man and being wanted in return – it had taken Erik over completely.  Charles watched his face, Erik’s open mouth shifting from a gasp to the grimace of passion. Erik shoved into him harder, changing the angle, pumping fast and then faster – and then came, crying out hoarsely as his whole body went taut. Charles felt it too, knew what it was for Erik, their minds for one moment as intertwined as their souls.

Afterward, Charles cradled Erik in his arms, against his chest. For a moment the shadow of the killer felt over him again – he looked down at his hand, now splayed across Erik’s broad back – but the shadow did not overwhelm him. It would be there for a long time to come, Charles knew. But he was not alone in the dark.

Erik had never done this, either – embraced someone after sex, been embraced in return. The simple delight of being held and cherished shone all the brighter for him because it was so new. At the surface of his thoughts, the level Charles could not help but read, glowed a happiness so deep that Erik still hardly believed it.

“I love you too,” Charles said.

Erik lifted his head so that their eyes met. “You skipped ahead again.”

Charles smiled ruefully. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” And slowly, so slowly, a smile dawned on Erik’s face. Even if he’d had no epiphany about the rightness of what they felt, even if he still bore countless scars, Erik had at least healed enough to smile. For now, it was enough. “I don’t mind.”

 

 

 

THE END


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